Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
by cliff.west
Summary: This is a spinoff story. It takes place after "But a somehow a most melancholy" and" Hunted Tribes". Please read those before this bit of work. I will not be recovering those stories, but re-reading them will help you fallow this story. This fiction also will be slow on the combat action.
1. Chapter 1

Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale

I do not own BattleTech, _Battlestar Galactica_ (2004 TV series) or Hunted Tribes/But Somehow a Most Melancholy. Those last two are by Hotpoint and Cannonshop, and I have been cleared to do a spin off.

This is a spinoff story. It takes place after "But a somehow a most melancholy" and" Hunted Tribes". Please read those before this bit of work. I will not be recovering those stories, but re-reading them will help you fallow this story. This fiction also will be slow on the combat action.

By Cliff

Beta By Nathan

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **Chapter 1:**

 **The Beginning: 22 July 3046 CE**

 **Planet surface of New Circe**

Robert was walking down the brightly sun lit hallway with his back ramrod straight. He was walking at a pace that few people his age, or a few years younger, would have found comfortable to copy. He was moving with a sense of purposes, but he was able to make it look like he was not rushed or in a hurry of any kind. It was a commander's walk, and it was recognized as such by anyone and everyone he passed. He was scanning his surroundings as he went looking at everything going on around him, as he counted down the passing closed office doors.

" _This hallway has way more people roaming around, than I can ever remember happing in the past,"_ thought the tall salt-and-pepper haired man as he came to the last turn, he hoped that he needed to make.

"There sure have been a lot of changes since the Munchkins have arrived on our planet, and war had fallowed them. Who would have thought we would be fighting robot beings from the edge of space, and not those Clanners."

Robert was mumbling has he found the number he was looking for. He stopped at the door, which he long ago had given up hope of ever entering again. At least not after having been retired from active service for a few years now.

The opening of the heavy Spartan wooden door, made the young and dapper Lieutenant look up from his keyboard and desk.

"Oh, great another lost recalled oldster to deal with." said the younger man with a sign. He had clearly meant to be heard by the intruder. He had a slightly down turned frown on his face before he tried to expel the intruder.

"Sir? The Reserve Reporting Office is three floors up and on the south side of the building. You must be looking for them, Query-Affirmative?" The young Lieutenant's sad eyes locked on the intruder who had dared to come into his domain. He was trying his best to intimidate the older man. Surely the old man must have been in the wrong doorway.

The older man knew exactly what the younger man was trying to do. The lad's condescension rolled off of him like water on a duck's back in spring time.

"Negative. I am here to see the head of Naval Personnel. I need to speak with Admiral Whitfield," was the flat response he gave to the annoyed young officer.

The young officer quickly looked at his boss's event calendar displayed on one of the computer screens flat and vertically mounted on his desk. Nothing was marked about any office meeting for the next few hours. The Lieutenant looked back at the older man, and he felt the corner of his mouth dip down even further.

"I'm sorry…Sir, but you must be mistaken. The Admiral does not have any appoints, that I do not know about. I would know, if you had an appointment with him." The tone was pure dripping with scorn.

Robert felt his blood pressure rising like a launching DropShip, and he had to take a nice slow, deep breath before he made his next move. He knew how the game was played in command. He just did not want to deal with this young pup anymore. He felt that it was time to drop the hammer on him. Robert reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out an off-white envelope. It had a seal embossed on the outside. He passed it to the clerk.

The young officer took the offered envelope and started to absent-mindedly open it, but stopped when he read the outside. It did not take long for confusion to run rampant on the younger man's face.

"This is impossible! I did not send this out! It's my job to send all the correspondence coming out of this office!"

With wide eyes, he reached into the envelope and pulled out the folded high-end paper. The young man carefully unfolded it to read what was written on it. He read the short few lines of the typed message and when he made it to the signature block, he knew what he had to do.

He did not like it. Not one bit. He rose from his chair and turned to the only other door in this office. He gave the hard, off-white painted wooden door two sharp raps, and then he entered the inner domain. He quickly closed the door behind him as he left the front office.

The young Lieutenant was gone for only a few seconds. When re-entered the office he was visibly paler than when he had left. Robert had heard nothing, but knew what had happened..

"Sir! The Admiral will see you now."

The shaken naval officer stated, pointing to the open door to his left with a wave of his right arm. The young officer stayed as far as he could, from the only other person in the room that was his office. He was very rattled, by what had just transpired.

"Thank you," was the simple response from the older man. He walked past the Lieutenant. A younger man who now had all the classic signs of having a strip of his hide removed by a senior officer. It looked like it had been done by one who was a master of doing such things.

Robert entered the spartanly furnished office. It was dominated by a large wooden desk. Off to one side one whole wall were large, thick-paned glass windows. Outside was the cool morning on cold city spread out in the sunlight.

The man sitting behind that massive wooden desk did not look up from the "paperwork" he was doing. He only pointed to an expensive high-backed leather chair. It was one of only two chairs in the whole office, other than the one behind the massive dark wood desk.

Robert took the offered seat and waited for more information to flow his way. He knew how the game of "wait" was played. He was a Master of it, with many years of playing it under his belt.

He had learned it as a master merchant for the Star league In Exile, or as the most people on this planet would call it, Clan Wolverine. The rules were always the same, no matter what type of power was being displayed. It was always about dominance over someone else in the room. Robert could and would play that game all day long, with no problems and across many worlds.

It was the man behind the desk who broke first, with a flash of a brief smile and waving hands in the air. He was older than the Lieutenant, but younger than Robert.

"Okay! Okay you win!" he said, "It's good to see you again Robert."

"Good to see you too David," Robert replied. "So, I see that you are robbing the Iron wombs early for assistants. He looks like he still should be still in school, not wearing a uniform. Much less being an aide for someone of your current rank. What, are you that short on personnel, now? I thought that the personnel losses had been pretty light so far."

This was the offhand response from Robert, as he hooked a thumb towards the outer office. Undoubtedly the younger officer left there was trying to figure how he had messed up so badly today.

"He is not that young, Robert. You are just that old. It has been a long time since you were so junior, Query-Affirmative?" Admiral Whitfield stated with a smirk. He had lost a point, but he had just made one back against Robert and he knew it.

Robert did not make a reply, and only sat there. He was still waiting to find out why he was in this office, of all places. The office of the lead officer in charge of all of the personnel assignments for the entire space navy for this little system.

The Admiral made a show of looking around his desk. He picked up and put down different folders, searching for one in particular. After a moment he picked up a red one.

"Oh, here it is." He stated.

Robert's heart sunk to the tile floor under his feet. Red was the color of a medical file. He knew what was in his medical records all too well. The Admiral flipped through a couple of pages, and then sat the file back on his desk, waiting for a response. Time passed in silence.

Realizing that he was not going to win this round, the Admiral finally relented. He tilted his head to one side and looked the older man in the eyes. "Robert, have you been keeping up on all of the news, Query Affirmative?"

Robert levelled a look at the Admiral. "David. If you have to ask that question? Maybe they need to start looking for a replacement, for you. I could call for a circle, and try for your job." He let this tone of voice go lighter and take the sting out of the words. It wasn't a threat, exactly.

"Yeah, right." said the Admiral, dismissively. "Although, there are days when I wish that someone, or anyone, would have this mess to work through other than me." The younger man leaned back in his chair and looked up at the white ceiling.

Robert could tell that the statement he had just heard was only in half jest. David was clearly under stress.

"Robert," said the Admiral, "I want you to command a JumpShip again. With the new drives that the Colonials have been selling us. They have caused me some problems which I had never thought I would have to deal with. At least one problem is one I am not all that sorry to have."

He continued. "We now have more warfighting ships in service than at any time since we first landed on this planet. I'm not sure I have enough officers for all of them. I certainly do not have enough for both combat and non-combat ships."

He tapped the medical file with his index finger. "I cannot assign you to a WarShip. Unfortunately, you failed your last physical in one important area. Your heart will not stand up to sustained three to five g acceleration or rotational loading. That is something we expect a WarShip officer to be able to do for hours and hours in time of battle."

He watched the older man, his friend, visibly deflate at his statement. Both men knew it was true. Robert might never know the glory of a naval combat command.

"If I cannot legally put you in one of the modified Titians," said the Admiral, "I had to come up with another idea. We are still gearing up to full wartime production levels, and we will be at that higher level of production for some time. This has caused some issues, which we hope have been caught in time."

David rocked back and forth in his office chair distractedly. The Admiral was building up to something, but Robert wasn't sure it was something he was interested in.

"As you well know, we have never been completely self-sufficient with some very important items. There just are some things that we had had to decide that it was too resource intensive to make with our limited manufacturing capability. That is why we did those supply runs."

"With the increase in production at wartime levels, we are wearing out tools we cannot replace quickly. We would have to decide to stop making both Mechs and fighters to make those new parts and tools. After that we would have to re-tool factories back to making the war-machines that we need."

David could see that Robert was about to start rolling his eyes. "You commanded one of those JumpShips on the last supply run to the Inner Sphere. The last one did well enough that higher command had not planned to make another run for another ten years are so. They were hoping that we could wait till to maybe around 3055 if we were lucky before we had to send anyone back. This war has changed all of those plans."

The head of Naval Personnel stopped talking, and let that sink in. It was time to cut to the chase.

"Robert. The Styx is coming out of one of the Main Drydocks on The Station. She will be cleared for operations by the end of the week. They want you to take commander of her again."

The Admiral looked his old friend dead in the eyes. "Do you want to captain her, Query-Affirmative? Then take her and make another supply run for us?"

Robert took a moment to consider, then spoke.

"Admiral Whitfield, why do you want me for this mission?"

He wanted to jump up and down and start doing a dance right there in the office, but he had to find out a little more information before he could agree. He needed to see if there was a hook hidden this bait somewhere. Something could be waiting to ruin or otherwise take his life. It would not have been the first time he'd seen something like that.

The Admiral cracked a little grin at his old friend. The man was just as sharp as he remembered.

"You were selected for a few reasons. First, you commanded the Styx on the last supply run in 3030. Second, you are on records as the fleet commander who took command of a few of the independent interaction stops. Those were very successful. Third, you worked with Commander Xi on that mission, and she will be your boss again. We like to keep successful teams together. Fourth? You will do whatever it takes to protect us out here from being found out by anybody from the Inner Sphere. Higher command knows this. Lastly, you have worked with 'The Families' before, and know how to find them.

The Admiral stopped talking for a few long seconds. "Commander Xi being in command is non-negotiable. Higher Command insists. I just offered to be the pitch man. But, Robert? You will be a ship's Captain again.

The Admiral put his hands flat on the desk top. "I am hoping that with some of the tech we are getting from the Colonials that we will be able to change the medical requirements for warship crews in the next eighteen to twenty-four months. If I can, I will see about moving you over to a real combat command when you return from a run successfully."

The Admiral shrugged, "That is, only if I can get them to relax those requirements. If I cannot? Then you going to be stuck in a support role until the end of the war."

As the Admiral finished his practiced speech, he passed a blue folder to the older man across the desk. He clearly wanted Robert for the job. He was the best choice for it, really.

Robert was one of the few people who had ever met any of the "family" in person. There might be half a dozen that were left alive on the whole planet.

The Family were a close kept secret. Not even computer notes were kept about them. They were the ones that the Wolverines had used as go-betweens and spies in the Inner Sphere. They also had been the keys to supporting supply missions in the past. They were so secret that no one in the planetary government knew who they were and how they might be contacted.

No one knew who they were except the Copeland family. They had provided most of the warm bodies for the formation of the group. They also had been the ones that had helped smuggle those people to their new homes, off planet.

Robert flipped open the folder and signed the back page on the appropriate line. He was taking the mission. He passed the folder back to the head of Navy personnel.

The admiral took the folder and put it in the box marked "Out". With that bit of work done he stood up from his desk and walked over to one of the massive windows. It had a wheeled, wooden-topped serving cart beneath it.

He took his time in selecting a decanter from a selection of a dozen bottle. He then poured a generous amount of liquid into two old, very ornately carved and inlayed tumblers. He made sure that each glass had an equal amount and then offered one to Robert.

Robert pulled himself out of the comfortable chair, stood, and took the offered glass. The two old friends touched glasses and took a deep sip. Robert recognized the drink as soon as the liquid touched his tongue. It had to have come from the case of real Terran whiskey that Robert had given to David years ago as a gift. It had been when he had come back from the last supply mission, to the Inner Sphere.

The two men were quiet as they savored the drink bottled on the surface of Terra, the cradle of mankind. After the second sip, both knew it was okay to talk again.

David spoke first. "Robert. I will not say you are the key to winning this war, but I do not think you understand how much effect you could have on how this war is going to be fought."

Each of the men took another sip of the amber drink. The younger man gave the older one a sly smile. "I hope your uniform is ready. You are going to report to Commander Xi in three days aboard the Station. Your time on the sidelines is officially over, my friend." He could not keep his poker face on any longer. A wide grin came to his face.

"Not a problem sir." Robert gave a grin of his own. "I have been waiting for this day ever since I found out that we were going to have company on this planet. Company that has been running from machines trying to wipe out all human life."

Robert finished his drink, put the glass down on the wood carrier, and reached out and shook the other man's hand. He turned for the door. Just as he was opening it, he looked back at the head of Personnel.

"Thank you for the drink David," he said, being sure to speak loudly enough to be heard in the outer office. "I hope to see you when I get back."

Robert knew he was being petty. He felt that he had to do something to the kid, if only to get back at him for trying to make his life difficult when he had first arrived.

He had made sure to use the Admiral's first name where the youngster had no choice but to overhear him use it. It would be the last time Robert could use that first name in public, now that he was recalled to the active military. It was very much against regulations to speak with a superior officer with such familiarity.

David played along with the game he knew is long time fiend and one-time boss was playing.

"Not a problem Robert. Good luck, and I will see you when I see you."

He had called out just loud enough for the newly recalled officer to hear, but not loud enough to be heard at the lieutenant's desk. Familiarity with a subordinate was good, to a point. A former superior should be respected. Junior officers had to earn their respect.


	2. Chapter 2 25 July 3046

**Chapter 2**

 **3 Days later 25 July 3046**

 **New Circe**

By Cliff

Beta By Nathan

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

Robert had thought that he would be taking a standard Small Craft to his destination. He was thinking of something along the lines of an ST-46, KR-61, Mark VII or even maybe a one of the few Drop shuttles. Any of which were in operations around the system. They were the main way to access the orbital base.

That was not what he boarded at the City of McEvedy Space Port, for his first trip to his new office.

His trip had been on an alien craft. Well, it was human made, but still alien. It was not a ship design which had ever flown the skies of an Inner Sphere world. The two small attendants working on the craft were the first Colonials he had ever seen in person. They directed him to his seat with practiced ease.

Roberts's escort had said that it was called a Heavy Lifter when Robert had asked about the oddly shaped craft. It was filled over half full of boxes. There were seats for passengers, some of which were occupied. Then even more, if smaller, boxes were put into any empty seats that did not have a warm body occupying.

The flight up and out of the atmosphere had been smooth. It had been almost TOO smooth, as a matter of fact. He had been dreading the lift off for three days. For most of the first few minutes, of any fight out of the atmosphere you were under between two to three g's of accelerations. Here he had barely noticed gaining altitude after liftoff.

It did not click into his old brain that something was not quite right. Not until he noticed by looking out the window that they were in space. As he looked at the deep black of space he realized that he had not felt zero gravity, yet. As an old Spacer being released from the bonds of gravity was what told him he was really on his way.

It had to be the "Artificial Gravity" that these little people knew how to make. It was a true marvel. A technology even the Star League never new. Unfortunately, they did not know how it worked.

He had heard about it but he had not really believed that they were capable of doing something that. Artificial gravity without rotation or thrust was the realm of science fiction stories. Stories that he still read as often as new ones came out. He had always loved sci-fi tales. Now it appeared he was living in one.

The orbital traffic around New Circe was another shock for the veteran spacer to see through the ship's unusually large portholes. There had been a major news release the day before. It had been about how the Colonials had made it back from their surprise visit back to their home planets. The whole fleet of the Exiles and this new group of humans were all in one place. And they were all in close orbit around the planet.

He had read the news story about the size of the refugee fleet. But seeing over sixty-five interstellar space ships in one place? That had been very hard to believe. Seeing them together was something new entirely.

As he watched the crowded orbitals he realized that that number wasn't quite complete. The reported number of ships did not include the blocky medium sized fighter craft called Raptors, dart shaped Vipers and the fifteen or so Heavy Lifter cargo/passenger ships flying around in the orbital lanes.

The military also had released detailed, over-detailed if you would have asked him, reports about the huge space battle that had been between the Wolverines and Cylons. Outlined in those reports was the trap that the Colonials had laid for their robotic adversaries. Thirteen battleship-sized carries, known to the Colonials as "BaseStars" had been destroyed. With them had died thousands of enemy fighters. The human forces had barely been scratched.

"Barely" being a relative term. Humanity had lost some of its number during the battle. He knew that all too well. Robert barely felt the itch of a tear trickling down his cheek at his own loss from that battle.

As they neared the orbiting space station the traffic got denser, with smaller ships flying between bigger ones at what must have been break-neck speed. The pilot announced in his heavy accent that they would be flying by the Battlestar Galactica. He pointed out that she was just visible on his side of the craft. Robert had to crane his neck to see the massive warship as they went close by. He had looked up some information about her when he'd had some extra time.

Reading about her was one thing, but to see the almost 1500m long warship was amazing. She was not the biggest warship, or even civilian ship, which he had seen. Then again she came in at what must have been over a million tons. She was in the top three of the largest of all ships he had seen in his long career.

She was an amazing sight to see, but she had been wounded. He could clearly see the damaged on her hull, and he knew that she would be in one of the main Drydocks for some time to come. She had borne scars, but would be made whole.

The Station was the center of the SLD- in-Exile's interstellar fleet. It had been started by one of their last Warships, the Cruiser called Buccaneer. She had been stripped of any useful parts to help in the repairing the few other remaining Warships the Wolverines had had in service. Not wanting to waste anything, she had soon stared her new life as the first step in rebuilding the Wolverines' space manufacturing capabilities.

As they had slowly stripped her to keep the other four Warship ships in fighting trim, she had slowly grown into something else. Things were added to the long hull. It was already outfitted with grav decks, life support systems, cargo holds, and docking ports.

For the first major addition they had added two old Invader-class merchant JumpShips. These would never ply the space ways again due to age, damage, or just bad timing. Higher command had determined that that they were no longer worth the effort in being repaired. They had more than enough JumpShips to support the limited inter stellar trade the Wolverines could manage. They had been towed from their final jump points and brought in to form the station.

Nor would they be the last vessels to give up their trade to become parts of the SDLF-In-Exile's naval headquarters The Wolverines added three old Mammoth-class cargo DropShips about fifty years after the two JumpShips had been added to the cruiser hull. These expanded the station still further.

Those three dropships had a proud history within the Wolverine Navy. They had been instrumental in the Clan's ability to escape being wiped out, by the other Clans. The DropShips had been emptied of cargo once the last personnel had moved out. They had gone to help set up a colony on the other side of human-controlled space from the madness of the other Clans. Once that colony had been established the Mammoths were no longer necessary for the SLDF-in-Exile's transport needs, and they had been re-used to expand the station.

The now empty space was refitted to house offices, crew housing, and a good-sized chunk of the Wolverines' space-based manufacturing. Almost all of this effort was to support the two larger dry docks and the two small dropship repair areas. Theoretically its production was send down to the planet as well, but Robert wasn't certain how much actually made it there. Some said that only about thirty-five percent of what was produced on the station was sent down the gravity well.

Supporting the Navy was, after all, the station's primary function. It was to help prepare against the time when the other Clans found them again and tried to wipe them out. It was more space-based industry than a planet with less than a million people on it should ever need, but the SLDF-in-Exile built it anyway. They had fought hard to keep it up and in working order, no matter how much blood it might cost. Their pursuers might find them at any time, and they needed to be ready.

Now all of it was being put into full use for the first time in decades. This was much to the joy of the people who worked on the beast for their whole life time. Their pursuers had never dome, and the expense of maintaining such a station had started to look frivolous. Now, with the arrival of the Colonials and THEIR pursuers production was running at full tilt.

Just as the shuttle was docking to one of the old dropship's hulls Robert was just able to get a glimpse of the Cradle. The Cradle was a new idea brought by the Colonials. In a short time it was made real by the SLDF-in-Exile's Navy. It was a building area that looked more like a spider web than a building slip or dry dock. It resembled an upside-down child's cradle floating space. It had one of the few repair ships that had made it all the way from the Colonial home words setting on top of the mess of metal braces.

In this Cradle there was a DropShip under construction. It was probably one of the New Olympus-class jump carriers which the news had been talking so much about. The Cradle was much smaller than either of the two dry docks that were part of The Station. The thinking behind its use was that the Cradle, and any more like her class would handle the construction or refitting of DropShips that would normally had need a full dry dock in hears past. Now those could concentrate on maintaining the Wolverines' WarShips. Or start construction of new WarShips.

Smaller classes of dropships were being built and/or repaired at the main planeside space port. This was done at one of the main repair bases which had been expanded from its original mission into a more important role for the SLDF. The Colonials might have only been about 50,000 people when they had first found the SLDF, but they were helping to expand the fighting and support ability of Robert's people greatly. Far more than any other group of the same size should have been able to do.

The Heavy Lifter was too large to dock inside a small craft bay. Instead, it had to dock to an escape hatch. One that had been seeing a lot more traffic than it had ever been designed for. The bottleneck of the escape hatch made the unloading of the heavy lifter a slow and laborious process.

Robert had to wait for the other passengers to grab their day bags before he could exit the craft himself. He turned to talk to some of the Colonials that were waiting to unload the cargo. He knew they wanted to practice their English skills, and he was curious about them. He reached into his inner coat pocket and withdrew his copy of a Caprican-to-English dictionary. One of the smaller Colonial looked at him and beat him to the punch.

"Sir, if you do not mind. I would prefer to speak in English," he said. "It will help me with traffic control. The sooner I can past the vocabulary test, the sooner that I can start picking up cargo jobs where they do not have translators on shift. "

He continued. "Now it looks to me that you might have a question or two for me." The Colonial put his hand on the low-slung, holstered sidearm. Robert tensed for a moment, but decided it was not meant to be a threatening move. It was more of a place to put a hand in a more comfortable position. Robert took it as a sign that this man had seen some combat.

" _Well, his English is a lot better than my Greek,"_ thought Robert.

"As a matter of fact. I do, if you have the time? I promise they are not personnel questions." He said with a grin. He knew it would help set people at ease. He was a very successful trader.

"Well, we have nothing but Frakking time," replied the stocky Colonial. "It's going to take a while for everyone to exit out the escape hatch on this slug. I'm game. Ask away." He returned a nod to Robert's smile.

"Okay. First, why did we board your ship at the space port and not one of our local short ranged hoppers?" Robert could see the back of the man started to straighten up some, starting to take offense.

"I am not complaining about your skills as a pilot." He clarified. "It was the fastest and easiest trip to the Station that I can remember ever having, in my life. I'm just curious."

Robert gave a disarming smile. He was used to zero-g, but sometimes having your feet planted made for an easier conversation. Also, it was a lot easier being nice without microgravity induced nausea.

"I am going to take over as a JumpShip's captain soon," he said. And I like to ask questions, when I see new things. How did you pick up this job?"

The pilot's eyes got a little larger at the mention of rank. He snapped a little hand salute.

"Sir. I work for the Colonial Government, for now. This little hopper was pulled out of orbit by Admiral Adama when he went back home on that raid. The Colonial Government signed a contract with the spaceport for some extra hard currency. Those funds go to help in the building of our Colony."

"I've been driving one of these things since before the Cylons bombed us out, though only as a second seat. I am waiting for a flight slot to open up in the regular fleet. I was hoping for a Viper seat or maybe one of the new Avars when they come out. "

He grimaced. "I did not make the selections for anything like that. They are very hard spots to get, much less for someone my age. At least I will be getting to learn about Raptors in the next year or so."

The pilot waved his head around to point to his craft. He had cocky smile on his face. "This pays the bills and lets me keep up my required flight hours."

He noticed Robert about to say something. "Before you ask. Yes, I have rehearsed those lines a few times."

The Colonial continued on. "I take it you're being recalled to be a ship's Captain. You said some about a jumping ship? I don't know what that means. I know you Wolverines have different names and titles for what ships do than we do. What does a jumping ship do?"

"It is a JumpShip," Robert corrected. "Two words together without a space. It is how the Star League in Exile transports things through interstellar space."

"We will not be doing anything major, just running a supply ship for the fleet. Or running from base to base outside of our little hidden solar system. You cannot fight a war without beans and bullets, or so they say."

He had no intentions of letting this stranger know which ship he was going to be taking over. OPSEC was ingrained into his soul. Who knew what his peril his mission really might in be if he were to risk a work being leaked out.

"Well just my luck," said the Colonial. "Too bad you are not picking up command on one of the warships. I was going to maybe try talking you into giving me some stick time on of those big fighters you all like to fly around. Oh well. But if you have any cargo that need to be moved let me know. I can bid on the job and fly it the same day. We are always looking for a new way to pay the bills, if you know what I mean."

The talkative pilot passed Robert a small calling card with clipped corners and a Raptor logo in the center.

"Sir," he said, "it looks like the line is almost done. Please be careful when you exit our craft. Sometimes there are floating blobs of liquid in the corridor. You do not want to go through one of those face first."

Robert started to push past to exit the ship. The pilot held a hand to stop him. "Speaking of that, have you heard when they are going to start putting artificial gravity plates on this thing?"

Robert felt a flash of irritation at the abrupt halt. These Colonials did not show much in the way of decorum. He shrugged. "From what I have heard they are stripping some of the stuff off of Colonial ships in the worst condition. I saw a report about it, on the news. I hear that the Star League Warships are getting a lot of grav plates off the ships that Admiral Adama brought back with him on his raid. They'll keep some for research, of course."

"It is just a guess, but I suspect that the Station won't get many of them if at all. That is until they can start making them in real job lots."

Clearly this Colonial planned to keep up this friendly interrogation. If it went on for a lot longer, Robert was concerned that the man would begin to question what brought a "merchant" captain on to a supply run to The Station. Too many questions, and things might get awkward. It was time to depart, and Robert knew something that would end of the conversation.

"I'm sure the new AI WarShp will get assigned quite a few."

Colonials had a blind spot when it came to anything related to artificial intelligence. A blind spot that the Wolverines did not have. Robert supposed that was to be expected. The Colonials, after all, had lost their worlds to the menace that was the Cylons. The Star League had used AI to defend their most important worlds. And when the SLDF's implementation of AI came into contact with the Cylons, the outcome had not ever been in doubt

The technology of the Star League proved superior. And the Colonials had to live with the fact that AI had both destroyed their way of life, and saved their people. Most of them weren't happy with the idea.

Robert saw the easy grin of the Colonial pilot freeze, and then sour.

"Welcome to the Station," said the Colonial, finally moving aside.

Robert walked past. "Thank you," he said.

He stepped through the transport vessel's hatch. He took a moment to re-familiarize himself with the lack of gravity in the corridor, then floated off in the direction of his destination. He kept a wary eye out for uncontrolled masses of liquid as he went.

He had been told ground side that any checked luggage would be dropped off at his cabin when he had checked in at the space port. Normally he would have expected to get his bags upon disembarking the transport. Now he understood why there had been a change in procedure. The hatch could either unload people or cargo, but it could not both things at the same time. To tell the truth. He did not want to wait for his two bags, before he continued with his other tasks for the day.

The transition between shuttle and space station was as strange for him as it was for those people in front of him. Normally the transit from the surface to the station gave him time to get used to microgravity. Even moving between a grav-deck and the rest of a ship had the transition of motion. This was like stepping off an airliner straight into zero-g. It took him a few minutes to get his space legs under him.

He had started floating down the metal hallways of the old dropship. He did see a couple of crew members cleaning up floating liquid. He pulled himself down the corridor on the provided handholds. The smell from the floating blobs was all he needed to motivate him to move a bit faster than was normal. He didn't want to think about where those blobs might have originated.

He knew where he had to go and how to get there. He had checked the schematics for the station on his noteputer while waiting to dock. He wanted to know if the office needed to visit had moved. He was a bit surprised to find that it had indeed moved since his last visit. He had last been there years ago when he had to come here to get his last payments for a job competed. He had lucked out because with all the changes going on the office had only moved by about six hatchways down the same corridor. He made it there in plenty of time, and he was even early for his appointment.

His next surprise was a little more enjoyable. The office had been outfitted with Colonial artificial gravity plates on the floor. A 'look out for gravity' sign was posted outside of the office door. He used one hand to press himself towards the floor before entering. He stopped in front of the door marked "Commander XI: Head External Supply Office" and knocked on the metal door three hard times and waited.

"Enter!" was the response given by a strong voiced woman from inside the room. That voice had no problem penetrating the pressure proof hatch.

Robert entered the room. It was the same small office you came to expect in space. Space inside the hull was valuable, and not to be wasted.

"Commander Xi! Captain Copeland reports!" Robert said, performing as close to a military-perfect salute as he could.

There might be a half a dozen ways the next few minutes might go. Robert didn't know how this would go down, but he wasn't going to let a lack of protocol start things off of the wrong foot.

"Captain Copeland you are early. Good." Commander Xi's voice showed no mirth, and only the barest hint of approval.

The navy Commander was a harsh faced woman who would never be called pretty. She was married to man that Robert had met just before he was let out of the navy. He had never understood what the man had seen in her. Perhaps she wasn't quite so dour at home. Or perhaps it was just that there was someone out there for everyone. They even had three children together.

"Some things never change, Query-Affirmative?" she asked.

"I try Commander," he responded. He saw a disapproving wrinkle appear on her brow. It took him a moment for him to realize his response had been off.

These two would never be friends. She was hardcore discipline, through-and-through. Protocol had never been all that interesting to him. They both respected each other, and that was enough for both of them.

She had been the person in charge all of the "civilian" JumpShips on the last supply run to the Inner Sphere. It was a task force made up of six JumpShips and the Battle Cruiser _Rickenbacker_. That mission had been a complete success in getting much needed supplies for the SLDF-In-Exile. Indeed, Higher Command had provided them with a wish-list that the expedition had not only manage to fill, but to exceed. No one in the Inner Sphere had been the wiser on who they really were when they returned to their hidden home nebula.

"Will you have a seat, Captain query-affirmative?" She said, as she pointed to a pair of chairs with a side table between them along one wall of the cabin.

As she said that, she was rising from the chair behind her metal desk. More lavish commanders would have replaced it by now, at least with something that had a wooden top. To Xi such extravagance was unbecoming of an officer of the Star League, In-Exile or no.

Robert took the seat, and made a face. "Affirmative Commander, but I am still working on passing the language test. I would appreciate it if you would go light on the query-affirmatives and query-negatives. Teaching an old dog new language tricks takes a while."

The Commander gave a slight head nod at the request. The furrow in her brow deepened a bit, but she made no rejoinder. She took the nearer of the two chairs and passed a noteputer over to her newest subordinate. Robert started review the text on the screen.

She spoke as he read. "The Styx came out of the repair slip yesterday. She was ready before then, but apparently the yard hands do not like letting their toys go early. At least not if they can help it. It also did not help things that she was replaced in her slip by a functioning,, crazy, and battle damaged Caspar drone, of all things. You would be amazed at the stories they used to keep her in the slip."

She sighed and continued. "Let us start on slide one and work through this Captain. Please stop me if I hit something odd to you. Or you have a suggested change."

She looked at Robert, who only nodded his head to let her know that he was listing to her. "Good. You know that the Styx is a Tramp Class JumpShip. She has had some changes since the last time you walked her decks. I do not know if you knew that. I know I did not before my briefing yesterday. She was built by Clan Snow Raven just before we had to leave Clan space. Her lithium-fusion battery and supporting systems were removed and no, you will not be getting them back."

Commander Xi waited for Copeland to say something, and was mildly surprised when all she got was a slight shoulder shrug.

"They needed one for some tests they are running with Colonial jump drives. The space and mass have been replaced by a Colonial jump drive from the Civilian ship called the Cloud 9. She was approximately the same size as your ship, so the refitting went very quickly. That drive has already been inspected and overhauled by both Colonials and our people before they shoehorned it to the Styx. The original plan had us using that drive on the Star Lord Class JumpShip Old Tom because she can carry more dropships.

Commander XI tapped her screen and the imaged changed. "Then they found out the modifications necessary for her to carry a Munchkin would have hurt her ability to hide her identity. Quite badly. A blind man could have tracked her, or so I am told."

"The refit would also have taken too long," she continued. "She would have been in the slips for about three times as long as was hoped for. So we went back to the idea of using the Styx, and I think this will work better."

The imaged changed again, this time to a list of named. "The assigned crews for the ships are all old hands from the other supply runs, but you can review them. If you want any changes to the roster please let me know as soon as you can and we will see what we can do. All of their personnel files are on the secure noteputer I gave you."

She stopped talking when she saw that Robert was studying the notes about the modification of the ship he was going to command on his own computer. He had disabled the connection she had been using for her presentation. When he moved to a different slide she re-enabled the connection and started talking again.

"This is going to be different mission than any other supply runs we have done before. The Styx will be the only mainline Navy ship that is going with you. She has had some of her armaments changed to fit this mission. New barrel sleeves were added to conceal her ER large lasers so that they will just look to be standard old tech large bore weapons. Just please try not to show the longer range abilities unless absolutely necessary. Her point defense systems are old-style, and look like heavy Gatling machine guns. Those should not draw any extra attention. It was decided not to upgrade them with a laser system because they would too hard to keep hidden. We have mostly removed ballistic antimissile systems from main line service, so there were plenty of systems available for you, and the ammunition to feed them."

Robert looked up from the little handheld computer and his face was like it was cut from stone. "Commander. First question, please? Why only send one JumpShip as the interstellar transport for this supply run?"

Robert did not like what he was hearing. He had quickly put his best poker face on as soon as he had read the first slide. He understood that they might not have a WarShip as an escort, this time, but sending a single JumpShip on this supply run that was going to be this long was risky.

Commander XI had been expecting this question. In fact, she had asked the same question herself when the idea had been first presented to her. This also meant that she had more time to find the answer.

"We do not have the extra ships," she said, simply. She had not liked the answer, but it was best to lead with the truth.

"That is not the only change from how we used to run these missions," she said. She leaned forward so that she could make this next part less formal than normal. She needed to have Captain Copeland fully on board to take this mission.

"With the newtech coming into service we will not be doing just one large mission at a time. The new Colonial-style jump drive will make the round trip a lot faster than before. The plan is that you will be making multiple trips for supplies and trading. Your ships will use the normal K-F system while in close to the Inner Sphere. You will use the Colonial system mixed with our computer tech to cut down the round trip travel time to the Inner Sphere."

"The Colonial jump system is a civilian version, so it is not built to withstand the rigors of combat. If it were, we would likely have assigned it to a WarShip. The experts think you will be able to make one twenty light year jump every hour, but recommend only one jump every three to four hours for normal operation. A complete tech report is loaded on your noteputer for you to read later. If you can come up with a reason that this is not workable then I need to know ASAP."

She smiled in a way that was not entirely cheerful "Then I will have you give a detailed briefing on those issues to some very high brass."

Robert was stunned. Of course, he had read up on the Colonials tech. He had even been able to access a few military reports about their capabilities. But he really had not believed that these people had jump drives that could recharge so quickly. He made a note to review all the classified files that he could on their technology now that he was back in the Navy full time. He needed to know what he would be able to do before he might have to do it in an emergency.

His new boss, or should he say his renewed boss, kept talking.

"We have two shakedown cruise missions planned out for you. We need you to do them both before we throw you into the very deep end of the pool."

For the first mission are having you clean up loose items around the local stellar areas. We don't want the Cylons to be able to acquire and reverse engineer our tech. So we have been sending out scouts to look around the nearby stars. This is the first re-survey we have done in about a hundred and fifty years. Not surprisingly, some things were missed or may have changed since the last visit we did to those areas. Now you might remember system LGR 2345?"

Robert did not say anything for a few long seconds as he thought about the question. When he found the information buried deep in his memory, he replied.

"Yes, Commander. That was where we found that loaded Scout-class JumpShip around a GV6 star. It was a dead system with a few gas giants, but nothing of real use to us, if I remember right. We did a quick inspection in-system. We could have taken the dropship, but the JumpShip's drive was dead and it would have requires too much work to retrieve. Also, if I remember right we thought it was a Pirate ship that had broken down and died there. No one wanted a dropship that might have the stigma of being a Pirate vessel, so we just left them there at the jump point."

His voice sounded a bit bitter, and with reason. Robert had been one of the strongest advocates of the Navy to build a mobile Yard ship, and he had been that way for decades. Some thought that his vocal support of his idea was why he had been retired from active service at such a young age. A yard ship would have made recovery of a "lost" JumpShip a hundred times easier than any current method. That still did not mean that recovery of a damaged JumpShip or WarShip with a bad jump drive would be easy, but it would have brought it at least into the realm of possibility. LGR 2345 would have been the perfect testing ground for such a vessel.

Commander XI let another smile come to her face. This was much friendlier. "I had almost forgotten that you had such a good memory. Yes, that is the one. Yes she was a Pirate, there is no doubt now. She had been going by the name of Blood Eye when we found her, but she had apparently been a supply vessel for the Star League at one point. How she ended up working for scum we do not know, or frankly care at this point and time."

Command XI kept the smile on her face. She knew Copeland could be a handful, but he could be scary smart at the same time. "The dropship she is carrying is a Leopard CV Class dropship called Hobgoblin. We have four of those same type of Leos, currently in service with the Navy. Thanks to Colonial technology, we have already changed them all into jump capable light carriers. So far all of the reviews on those modified craft had been very positive, so the value of that system has gone up. We can use that ship in this current war no matter what stigma it might have hung on it."

Xi watched as Copeland nodded his head in agreement. He had uncoupled his computer from hers again, and was poring over the crew manifest.

"If you go to the next slide, you will see that K-F drives and Colonial drives can co-exist without interference between them. A ship equipped with a Colonial jump drive can be in contact with or even carry a vessel with a K-F drive without issue."

The Robert was trying to process that she had said, but it wasn't quite tracking with him yet. A drive equipped ship carrying another drive equipped ship? That meant…

"If you will go to the next slide, please?" asked Commander Xi. She again waited.

What Robert saw slightly modified Titan-class Dropship doing something unnatural to a Triumph-class dropship that had been strapped to the bottom of the arrow-shaped fighter carrier. Robert spent some time looking at the image before he commented on it. There were only about four short paragraphs of data to explain the image.

"I have heard about this, but will it work when Styx tries it with the Scout?"

Robert's eyes were wide and wild. The prospect of the two drives working together was like opening a gift.

"That is what you were thinking about, right? You said that Colonial and Star League K-F jump drives can work together without blowing both ships apart. You have already said that the Styx had one fitted in place of the double jump system. Who tested that little trick? Also what about two K-Fs that are close together? Why not just scrap the Scout in system, snag the dropship and the drive, and be done with it? Why bring it all the way back here?"

Commander Xi's smile turned sly. He had jumped right at the time she had predicted, that he would. "Captain, please go to the next slide. I think that will answer your first question. And for the second, we are not scrapping the Scout. We are going to repair it, and then you are going to sell it on your supply run to the Inner Sphere."

She raised one eyebrow and waited. Once the slide loaded the fireworks started in earnest.

"Oh MY God!" Roberts said, nearly shouting. "Is that the Caspar being carried by a Colonial battleship? So that's how they got it all the way out here!" He looked up to make eye contact with the Commander.

"Well, if they can do it with a 680,000 ton warship we should be able to do with a Scout-class JumpShip," she said. Robert was thinking as fast as he could. He took a deep breath to start asking questions.

Commander Xi held up a hand to stop him.

"I cannot go into all of what makes the SLS Nike special, at this time," she said. "I will say that they ran and reran some tests. I have heard it is somehow connected to the "Bright Star" Auto Scout project. What that is I do not know, yet. The Colonial drive can somehow put out a subatomic field that no had ever thought of. That effect somehow insulates normal jump cores from each other."

"In any event, that is your first shakedown mission. It is the recovery and successful return to this system of both of those craft."

She paused, waiting for him to acknowledge. After a moment Robert nodded, still stunned by the information he had just been given.

"The next mission," she said, "is to a system nine hundred light years from us. It has been designated PHX 3345. This system has three rocks, four gas giants, and an old Merchant class JumpShip. It is older than the Scout, but not significantly so. We have no idea what happened to her, but we want you to grab her. While you are there you are to also pick up the two drop ships connected to her. They are what we think is a Trojan and what is left of a Mule class."

Commander XI sat back deeper in her chair. "After that we will review all of your reports, finish refit of the Styx, and then you can start Phase 2. This all needs to be kept quiet. If some of the more religious of the Colonials find out that we are sending a ship to the Inner Sphere there could be trouble. You will be closer to Earth than any other ship in the fleet. We might say something later, but for right now all information is on a need to know bases, only. Higher Command wants it handled as sensitively as knowledge of us given to someone in the Inner Sphere."

She stopped talking and waited for a reply from the Captain. She would not go farther until he acknowledged her orders.

Robert stopped looking at the image on the handheld computer and made eye contact with his boss. His poker face had long since disappeared, and genuine joy showed on his face.

"Can do!" he said. "It should not be a problem. The old hands should know how to keep their traps shut. Any new people my people can manage. How long do I have to work up my ship and crew before the first shakedown mission?"

Commander Xi stood, straightening her uniform from sitting in the comfortable chair too long. "If you are not ready in twenty one days from today, I will need to know why. We do not want the Cylons finding either of those assets, Captain. If something is wrong with your command, we will have to go with our Plan B. That is to take care of it with firepower. It would be viewed as a waste which we could have avoided. Do not make me look bad, Captain."

Taking the rising Commander as a hint that this meeting is over, the Captain stood up from his chair and started to turn his head towards the door.

"I guess I had better get started," he said. "Commander, you know me. I will succeed if it is at all possible."

He paused for one last question, thinking about his ride to the station.

"Are there any other changes to the rules on small craft rides to outlying ships that I need to know about?"

"No," she replied. "The rules on small craft usage are the same as always."

She seemed puzzled at the question, but seeing that Robert had no further comment she continued.

"Captain Copeland, please message me in fourteen days with an update. Your XO has a training plan already laid out."

She made a motion towards the door. She was a very busy woman with a lot that she had to get done before this mission was allowed to leave the Nebula.

Robert left her office with a speed just below reckless. He had a lot to do too. This was going to be _fun_.

18


	3. Chapter 3 26 July 3046

**Chapter 3**

 **26 July 3046**

 **New Circe Star System.**

By Cliff

Beta By Nathan

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

Robert was able to hop a Colonial-made Raptor to his next destination. It would take him for his first intersystem Jump from low orbit spot over New Circe to the Zenith jump point, where the Styx was waiting for him. The Raptor was only a fifty ton or so craft, and it only held eight others going to the small transfer station located there at the edge of the star system.

The transfer station was the hulk of an old Merchant class JumpShip which had cracked its jump core on the last jump to this system in 2950. It had slowly been turned into a short term housing and cargo transfer station when it needed to be. The 40m grav deck was always in use. The six hundred tons of cargo space was small but had made life a lot easier when transferring cargos. To the few ships that left this star system, it was great. When nothing was scheduled the transfer station was shut down and left un-manned.

To his surprise. The command crew of the Raptor were both Wolverines and the ship was marked in SLDF colors rather than the markings he studied of the Colonial navy. He thought that their presence made it more likely he'd be able to get a Raptor design to his mission. He might as well ask. What was the worst that could happen? They might say no?

" _I will have put that on my list."_ He said aloud, as he floated out of the hatch and out of the AG field the Colonial craft had.

Hearing the oldster say something. The young crewman in charge of the cargo bay did not know if it was directed at him or not. Robert was wearing a SLDF uniform with a Ship Captain's rank on the shoulders. You did not want to be accused of ignoring a senior officer.

"Did you say something Sir? Query-Affirmative?"

Robert made a face that he made certain was gone when he made eye contact with the crewmember. There was no need to bite the young lady's head off. She was only being polite.

"Yes, I did," said Robert. "I was going over the list of things in my head I have to do before my next mission. I just realized I had forgotten something, which I should have added to it before". Robert exited the craft.

The Raptor was small enough ship that it could fit in one of the two the Small Craft bay the former JumpShip had been built with. Robert had that stomach turning event again when he went from normal gravity to zero g in a single step. He held on to a hand rail this crew had attached to the low slung wing of the transport vessel. He noticed that that there was a second Raptor in the same bay. That was odd, because normally one small craft or fighter took a whole bay by itself, no matter how much it massed.

The young Raptor crewman standing near the end of the wing saw the look. He had a good idea of what the old timer was thinking.

"Sir, we have regular services out here. That one will be leaving in about forty minutes, for the return trip in system. If you forgot something they can bring it back out in about a day, if you need it badly and it's not too large."

"That's convenient," Robert said.

The Raptor crewman shrugged. "I do not know how much long we will be doing it. I know that we have been doing it for a few weeks now. I have heard there will be some changes. They are going to start moving all the mothballed ships, support structures, and whatever else are all the way out here. They want them closer in system, and away from the old jump points. It is supposed to make them easier to defend, as well as cut down on fuel and travel time to keep checking on them. Well, that is what they said at the brief yesterday. I just go where they tell me, when they tell me."

Captain Copeland looked back at the small craft crewman. "Thank you. I will have to keep that in mind. What will they come up with next?"

Then Robert let go of the temporary hand rail with a push, and he slowly drifted to the hatch door. That led the rest of the way through the ship. He had to get to the second craft bay to catch his ride to his new home, and he did not want to miss it. A ship's Captain should not be late for his first ride to his command. He was meeting his new crew, and first impressions were important.

 **The Modified Tramp-class Jumpship Styx**

A cheerful "Welcome aboard Captain!" greeted Robert as he exited the S-7A bus in the small craft bay of the Tramp class JumpShip. A familiar face was behind the greeting, and Robert was glad to see it.

"Well good to see you, Jules! I cannot believe you gave up a Reserve Captain's rank to take this job."

Robert gave a sly grin. "What? Your daughter could not find something you liked better?"

Jules Vaun, ex-captain, was the father of the current Lord Protector Jennifer Vaun. Jules was proud of that fact, but also in his own abilities. Jules Vaun would have been livid at an implied accusation of nepotism from anyone else. From Robert he knew it was only teasing.

Jules let a very fake looking image of shock come to his face. "Are you kidding me? This is the only way they would let me off the planet again." They both were heading out of the small boat bay. They were swimming side by side, as they made their way to the bridge with practiced memory. It was even better than going back to your childhood home.

Jules kept talking as they moved through the ship. "You will recognize almost everyone on board. Everyone, except the crew to mother the new engines, were on the last run into the wilds with us. We have almost the same group of personnel. There will be four officers, fifteen enlisted, four gunners, and ten bay personnel. The other two officers and seven of the total Enlisted are assigned to maintain both jump engines that we are currently packing. We are finishing up some work and will start buttoning up all the panels on the ship tomorrow, maybe about mid shift. Then we can get down to knocking the rust off of the crew".

Robert nodded. He'd known all of this from the briefing documents he'd gotten from Higher Command, but information redundancy was a way of life in the Merchant Marine.

"Sounds like a plan," he said. The door closed on them. Then another one was just starting to open up on a bigger universe for all of them. It was only a question if they would live to see much of it or die trying.

Most of the time in space would be spent on drill, after drill, after even more drills. Safety redundancy was a way of life in the Merchant Marine as well. Space was a dangerous place.

 **6 Aug 3046: Station office of External Supply Office**

" **The Station" New Circe Star System**

A small, speedy vessel like the Raptor made it much easier to have meetings deep in the system. It did not mean those meetings were productive. It was just easier to have them, whether you wanted to attend them or not. Robert had hopped a Raptor from the Jump point make the meeting with Commander Xi just as he had been ordered to do, in person. He was setting in her office now cooling his jets, waiting for her to finish reading a report he had written.

Commander Xi looked up from her computer screen and made eye contact with Robert. She gave her subordinate a level look that could have frozen helium. "So, Captain Copeland. You have said in your reports that you are ready to launch Part One of Phase 1. That is a six hundred light year journey. That is still so, Query-Affirmative?"

It was needlessly formal, and Robert wanted to give a less than polite response to his superior. Instead he went with the old standby.

"Affirmative. Ma'am, we are ready. The crew has done very well on all of their tasks and have passed all of the required tests. Both of the jump engines have passed all tests. The trial jumps have been made between the solar poles using both types of engine. We have been fully supplied in consumables and our supply of Tylium topped off just before I came here. I have done everything I can without leaving New Circe controlled space."

Commander Xi did not smile. "That is good to hear, and you are area a full week ahead of schedule. I knew you were the right person for the job when I saw your name on the proposed plan. Based on the pattern of your previous reports I cut orders three days ago for your assigned support ships to leave orbit today."

She smiled at the now quiet, and for once still, Captain. "You will be taking the Buccaneer-class transport White Skies. She is carrying the repair crews, tools, some spare parts that might useful for the next step. The Elephant-class tug Hard Hat will also be with you. She will be doing any of your heavy lifting, as well as performing as security. She just came out of refitting. And before you ask, No. She does not have a Colonial jump drive, anti-gravity plates, or Class 5 HOD's. Also, the Titan-class jump-dropship light carrier Themis will go out with you. After checking things out, in the system you're working in. She will patrol the neighboring systems while your command does its job. No matter what you think, she is not under your command. Do not even think about tasking them."

Commander Xi held up her hand to stop what she saw as a percolating comment from Robert. "We are doing it this way for a reason. We want to ensure her Captain does not embarrass himself, again, with the Munchkins." She was about to say more. The she decided that she did not want to poison the well. This was a last chance mission, for that ship's master.

The Hard Hat was a legendary ship for the last defenders of the Star League. There were now three active tugs in the star system working, on a long list of projects. The Hard Hat was the oldest ship that this Clan had built. She had not been built in clan space, the old Star League, or even near New Circe.

She was the first dropship built by the fleeing clan. It had been launched when they stopped over a planet that was 22.7 light years coreward fromMcEvedy's Folly. She was one of the main reasons that Clan Wolverine still had a working space fleet at all. Before the arrival of the surviving Colonials, only one of the tugs were in use. One tug had been mothballed for future needs and one of the other two tugs was always dirtside for services, but it was a very low priority. Only one ship of this class was in operation, at any one time. Now there was talk of starting to build a new one to help with the work load that the three were falling behind in supporting.

The 15,000 ton Elephant-class dropship was an odd bird of a dropship. She was part tug, and it could tow any spaceship up to and including the Zug. It was also also were part cargo ship, and could carry over 2,000 tons of cargo. That was about the same as the Buccaneer class dropship Captain Copeland were going to be hauling that was attached to his JumpShip. It also was part ground assault ship, with heavy weapons, mechs, tanks and infantry compartments within her hull.

It was the perfect multi-mission craft. It was a jack of all trades, and a master of none. If they ever put a colonial jump system into it, it would be the perfect raider. That is if Clan Wolverine were so inclined to do something like that.

"So, what did they do to the Old Lady?"

He was not going to ask about the Themis. He would wait to see if he needed to ask about the Captain of the Titian. Robert thought that he must have done something bad. He also had been in the wrong, to have upset both the Colonials and SLDF High Command. Enough things had happened between the two cultures to have caused major waves. So far no one had lost their command over it. The Cylon POW issue and the ship nicknamed the Beast both came to mind.

In each of those incidents the higher Commands had backed up their people on the ground against the Colonials. It meant that a certain ship's Captain must have stepped on his crank rather badly to be need a second chance. Maybe Robert could try to use the trip to work on some leadership development for the escorting carrier's young commander. It could save a promising career or be the final proof that said captain was a waste of skin and oxygen. The Clan did not like to waste anything, which also included effort for a lost cause.

Commander Xi did not seem to notice that the Captain in front of her had more going on in his mind than the question he had asked her, or did she?

"All of the medium class lasers and 10 tube long ranged missile launchers have all been removed from the Tug," she said. "The lasers went into storage at Frank Hallis Airbase for now. In the near future, they will be either are to be sold to the Colonials for their 10 ton Viper fighters, or held as a strategic reserve for a later need. The LRM systems are sitting dirtside waiting either to go into a bunker defensive point or into the turret of a new hover tank."

The Commander was looking down at the notes and shook her head from side to side slowly. "We had wanted to put a few of the LB 5 UACs or HODs into her. There are not enough of them to go around yet, so that is one upgrade that will have to wait for a while. Maybe we will do it after you get back and go into your supplemental refit."

Robert raised his eye brows. "What about the putting a colonial jump system in her and her class mates?" he asked. "I would think that she would be about perfect in picking up anything the other scouts found that needed to be brought back home. My other question is: why bring the extra parts for the Scout class? Why not just grab her, and come home? I looked in my orders and briefing papers. That was one of the things that was never explained."

"Both of those are good questions, Captain. I will start with the first question. The Colonials only have about sixty odd transport ships. And that is what they had in total, when they stumbled onto us. We have bought or will have access to maybe ten of those ships. So, call it about 1/6th of their total fleet at best. A large part of their government and population are worried, about the Cylons coming back. They are afraid that they will be found helpless. They want to keep as many of their ships jump worth and ready go as possible. Given what they been through I am surprised we got as many ships as we have. For what it is worth, I suspect our Ancestors would have been just as ready to flee during their Exodus from the Clans."

Commander Xi had to shake her had to clear an image from her mind of mushroom clouds over her home. She then continued.

"The answer to the second question is that any work they can complete on that small JumpShip before you return will speed up the mission. The workers will at the very least perform an inspection of the vessel while you are on route. They will have completed or mostly completed drawing up lists of repairs need on that ship by the time it gets back to us. That alone will cut down on the timeline getting your ready for the Phase 2."

She looked at her chrono. "I do not mean to rush, but are those your only questions. Query Affirmative?" She said as she cocked her head to one side waiting for a response.

"Affirmative, Ma'am," Roger replied. I think that is about it. Thank you for your time."

Robert did have more questions, of course. He knew better to ask them of Commander Xi. When he got back to the Styx he would just ask the COB to see what he could find out through other than official means. The senior enlisted personnel on the ship had, by tradition, had his own unofficial information network to farm for data a ships commander might need. A Captain who had a good relationship with his chief non-com could expect to tap into that network from time to time.

Commander Xi opened up her calendar after checking her notes. "Good. Your two tagalongs should be at the jump point, on the 14th or early on the 15th of August. Once they have attacked to the Styx it is up to you to start your mission."

She passed to Robert a data storage device. "Here is a copy of the crew files for each of the dropships. It also has a copy of all the orders that could impact your mission. This will include what had been given to the Captain of the Themis, just in case."

Robert nodded, thinking about the Carrier captain. Whoever it would be wouldn't be under his orders, but the inclusion of the carrier's itinerary meant that Xi at least expected them to work together.

Commander Xi continued. "If you are not back by twenty five days post-jump then we will send out a ship to check on you. If you run into anyone, review the cover story before communicating with them. It has been updated since you last reviewed it, but only on the fine details. The gross story is the same one you are already well familiar with."

She stood and saluted, signaling the end of the meeting. "Good luck, Captain. I look forward to seeing you in less than twenty five days. The faster you get back and complete your second trip the better it will be for the security of the all of the human race." Robert also stood, and saluted. Then the two officers went their separate ways. Only one stayed in the office and the other left the room, but both had a lot of work to do.

 **15 Aug 3046**

 **New Circe Star System**

"Sir. All ships are secured. All stations report ready to jump," called out the XO of the Styx to her Captain and rest of the bridge crew.

"XO. We will be using the standard jump engines for a thirty light year jump. Please check the target coordinates. If they are correct then you may start the jump clock at a ten minute countdown and start the countdown. Please let the Dropship Captains know when we have started the jump count down. They should provide us a go or no-go no later than the two minute warning." These directions were standard across all of the reaming ships of SLDF in Exile. It was used for every non-combat jump.

This was a well-worn procedure, and well known between the long time professionals on all three ships. Under normal circumstances it would have been entirely route. This time however was a bit different.

This was the first full range test, of the old K-F jump drive. The Styx had jumped between the polar jump points in-system, but this would be the first multi-light-year test of the K-F drive with the Colonial drive installed alongside. There was still a nervous energy among the crew, who knew just how badly a mis-jump could go.

"Coordinates match," reported the XO. "The Clock is Set and counting down. All dropships report ready for jump."

The space around the Tramp-class ship was empty. The old ship had used its station keeping drives days ago to push it over 5,000 Km from the any object larger than a basketball on the odd change the object's mass could cause an issue with the test jump. That was likely an excessive amount of caution, but no one on the crew had complained. Mis-jumps were often fatal to an entire crew.

What happened next was amazing, and routine. It happened fast, and in the space of two seconds an invisible field first engulfed the ship and then started to expand. The Styx and her passengers at first slowly faded and then disappeared totally from the New Circe system. In the space of less than sixty seconds a ship that was almost 300,000 tons and holding cargo and people, had successfully been moved thirty light years.

A lone star shone brighter than all the others. They were in another system. After a moment the XO spoke.

"Jump complete. We are on target in the target systems. All crews secure from jump."

There was no audible sigh of relief from the crew, but the tension eased. They had passed their first hurdle and now knew that they could jump to a star system with no more than the usual amount of danger.

As the long lost feeling of the jump started to wear off of the crew Captain Copeland checked his display screen. "Tell engineering to inspect all systems. Do not deploy the sail. I want a report in four hours. Let me know when the Themis jumps in system please. I want to launch the "Series A" of jumps with the Colonial engines in eight hours. Let's get to it people."

It was the word of God and in a hand full of seconds over thirty people jumping or floating to their jobs, checking for any damage that the jump might have caused on the three different ships. Robert felt his own tension drain from his shoulders. He had made hundreds of jumps, but the presence of a second jump core had made this more stressful than most.

Four hours later the operator for the FTL detection systems station called out contact. "Target. Colonial or Cylon jump drive system. Range 10,000km. emergence in 1 minute."

The operator flipped up a cover and pushed a large red button hard enough that if they had not been strapped into the chair they would have floated off of their seat. Throughout all three ships everyone reacted to the General Quarters alarm. Gunners hurried to weapons stations, thick metal blast doors closed, and damage crews started putting on protective suits in case of a hull breach. There was not an ounce of panic.

Captain Copeland knew approximately when the fighter carrier was supposed to enter the system. It was supposed make sure that there were not any issues with the first full scale jump using the old K-F drive. If there were any issues the little fighter carrier was to rendered aid, or jump out of the system and get help it things went REALLY wrong.

Copeland and his XO had not notified the crew of the impending arrival of the Themis, and were using it as a way to test the crew on how well they react to a surprise attack. Attacks on JumpShip were rare, but rare was not the same thing as never. They did happen, especially in light of the appearance of the Cylons.

"Talk to me." This came from the voices from two different people floating in from two different doors at the same time. It was the XO and the Ship's Captain making their way to the bridge. It had been planned that both men would not be on the bridge when their escort might be coming in. It was good training for the crew to have to respond to emergencies without having a command officer immediately available.

"Sir, it is the Themis," reported the sensor tech. "She is sending a drill code."

An icon flashed on the tech's console. "Sir, we had a statues update! Six smaller craft separating from the main target. Looks like they are forming up into an attack formation. They are moving toward us and picking up speed."

Robert nodded. "Pass the word that we will be doing a drill. Notify all gunners, on all ships, to set their weapons on simulation mode only. They are to defend their zones. We do not want to put holes into our Fleet's ships."

Captain Copeland then settled in to his command chair. It was time to let his crew work as their training told them. Copeland let his crew fight the ship. A fighter raid from an incoming DropShip was a standard type of engagement for a JumpShip to have to deal with. This was the sort of engagement that his crew right felt they could handle by routine. He was waiting on that to change. It just was a matter of time.

A few minutes later an enlisted woman from across the bridge called out "Statuses change! The fighters have...jumped? HOW CAN THEY DO THAT?!" after a moment she regained a bit of composure.

"I still have the Titan on long range system," she reported.

Robert watched his bridge crew closely. He knew about the jump-fighters even before he was recalled, and so did his crew. But there was a difference about knowing data and having to fight against it. All of the testing to counter an attacker had been focused against an Inner Sphere tech or Clan tech attacker. The new wrinkle of jump-capable fighters was something many in the SLDF-In-Exile's navy had yet to adjust to.

"Sir," the sensor tech reported, "They are on us. 10 klicks off the bow, making an attack run."

The squadron of hundred-ton Kirghiz aerospace fighters had used their surprise jump to good effect. They swooped down on their prey, spitting marking lasers. The Styx's gunners found themselves looking the wrong way, and took a moment to re-orient themselves on the new position of their targets. They were out-gunned, and out-maneuvered. Robert knew the simulation report for this was going to be ugly.

The more massive JumpShip only had the firepower equal to two of the fighters, and very thin armor made up her skin. The Styx was a cargo transporter that was over two hundred years old, and not a weapon to use on the front line of a war. It could find itself there, but it only had enough weapons to keep smaller fighters back. At least until it could jump to safety. The dropships would be harder to kill, but without a way home they also would have been in trouble.

The computer reported four of the fighters were "destroyed" before the computer noted that the JumpShip was inoperable and "destroyed" also. The gunners might be older, and they had been surprised by the tactical jump. But they knew how to track and hit targets from years of experience doing this job for real. The log book was full of the kill markers she had earned threw out her long life.

"Well that went better for us, then it should have." Lt Vaun said.

His flat, emotionless voice said a lot about how this little combat training had gone today. He had to fight to keep a snort from passing his lips.

Robert turned to his comm tech. He kept any comments he might have had to himself. The crew knew how things had gone, and there was time to remedy their issues later.

"Communications," he ordered, "Please contact the Themis' Commander. Pass along my congratulations to him on his victory, and ask him to come over for an After-Action Review in two hours. I will be in my cabin."

With that Captain Copeland rose from his chair and pushed himself off the bridge like an old spacer should. He had his own AAR to write. Some changes, it seemed, were in order.

 **2 hours later main briefing room SLS Styx**

LT Vaun completed his briefing to the two ships' Captains. Benedict was the Captain of the Titian carrier, and he did not look like he cared for the computer results of the drill. He also did not like being in Zero G, just like the Styx's briefing room was in. His face and his bearing communicated his displeasure.

In short, he was acting like a pain in the butt. Captain Copeland was taking mental notes on the other man. When the XO had finished his briefing he strapped the report down on the table so it would not float away.

"Those pilots!" griped Benedict. "They should have broken formation down into smaller units. They have forgotten even the most basic attack maneuvers. I will note that in their records. And I will have them drill until they get it right. Losing four out of six fighters is unacceptable. You are only civilian JumpShip. Maybe I should head back to New Circe and get a new set of pilots. Ones that are not so green."

The carrier captain stopped talking for a few heart beats, then started up again. "They lack discipline. They are almost as bad as the Munchkins."

He had just dug a hole for himself and he did not even know it, yet.

Robert knew the man's type. Benedict had been an aerospace pilot before taking command of his own ship. He had primarily been based on planetary surfaces, and still thought about space combat in atmospheric terms. He was so uncomfortable in microgravity that Robert was certain he was the sort of captain to use up reaction mass just to maintain acceleration to mimic gravity.

Captain Copeland decided that he had heard enough. He knew who had planned this attack. It had not been the fighter pilots. He also knew what orders they had to follow during the attack. He had listened to a copy of the transmission between the fighters and the Captain of the larger ship.

"Was it really all the fighter jocks fault, Captain? Yes, they should have had more spacing between the fighters during the attack. You were the one that sent fighters configured for long-range combat into knife-fighting range. Your pilots were disoriented by the jump, but reacted quickly and changed formation. We were the "Baseship" in your plan of attack. You sent just six fighters after a capital ship that had DropShip support, without their own support of any kind. Where were you, with that up-armed carrier and the dozen Visigoths still in their bays? You never leave your fighters without support when attacking larger vessels."

Robert was on a roll. "Captain that is Tactics 101. I know because I taught the course. I know the first wave of fighters asked for support, when you order them to jump and attack. I have a copy of the intercept if you need a little refresher."

Captain Copeland decide right then to be old school, to snap the other captain into shape. Benedict might not be under his command, but Robert still had seniority over the man.

"Captain you are arrogant. Confidence is good for an assault dropship or warship captain, but you have to have skills to back it up that confidence. Skill is the difference between confidence and arrogance. You are not superior simply due to your station. All you will do is get a whole lot of good people killed."

Robert stopped talking and waited to see who the other officer would react to his verbal slap. It could go one of two ways. One was that the younger officer would take the hint, and accept help fixing himself. The other was…

Benedict practically exploded in apoplexy. "YOU CAN NOT TALK TO ME THAT WAY! YOU BOTH ARE NOTHING BUT JUST A PAIR OF JUMPED-UP TRASH HAULERS. I SHOULD DEMAIND A CIRLCLE!"

Benedict was literally livid. He had forgotten this ship was in zero g, and the blood had started to pool in his face when he began to shout. He tried to jump from his seat as he yelled with the full force of his modified lungs.

He suddenly found himself floating in the middle of the room away from any kind of surface. All he could do was fail around until the moving air current pushed him close enough to grab the large desk. Only then he could pull himself back to his seat. It did not improve his mood any. His face was still bright red with rage.

"Benedict."

Robert did not raise his voice. But the dropping of the rank of the other officer was a dead giveaway that he was not happy.

"Get ahold of yourself. If you cannot control yourself I will have you escorted off my ship. In fetters, if necessary."

Benedict looked like he was about to start shouting again. Robert forestalled him by indicating the man's rank flashes.

"You are a ship's Captain. You had better start acting like one. Your name was not pulled out of a hat, so you are supposed to be smart. I do not know what you did on your last mission, but I will say that if you do not get your head out of your four points of contact you will not have the Themis for long. LT Vaun and I both have been ship's Captains longer than you have been alive. You might want to listen to us. We have been around the block. We have been there, done that, gotten the t-shirts, and wished we could give them back. And we have the scars to prove it.

He shrugged. "Or do not listen. It's up to you."

He hoped the lecture might get through, but he saw something in the younger man eyes. This was not going well.

"On second thought," he said, "You may leave my ship. Now. By the time you get to your ship you will have our coordinates for the next four jumps. We will see you at the last set. Good day!"

Both Robert and Jules left the room, showing the younger captain how real spacers handled zero g. It took a few minutes to make it to their command chairs. They did not talk as they traveled. As the two officers entered the bridge of the JumpShip, the COB made eye contact with them.

He floated over, and in low voice said "That Frakker's Bus has left the bay. And he did it without scratching the paint. I did not know that he had it in him. Maybe he could go back to be a pilot of some kind. He sure can't command a dropship with a damn."

"Thank you, Chief. Is everything ready?" Robert didn't really need to ask, but tradition was tradition. If there had been any issue the COB would have given Robert the heads up himself.

"Sir, all departments report ready to jump. We had no reports of damage or anything else of concern. Engineering reports the drive is good to go and is in good working order, and I concur. I have signed off in the ships log that she is ready to proceed."

That was high praise from the COB, who had helped tear down and rebuild that old engine twice until it had finally met his standards. Per SLDF regulation the COB had veto power on any jump made outside of combat conditions, and he took that right to heart. The man was fanatical about the condition of "his" ship.

Robert floated to his command chair and made sure the small craft from the carrier was well away from the JumpShip. He pitched his voice so that the whole bridge could hear what he was going to say.

"XO. I believe the next test is a rapid set of jumps using the Colonial tech jump engine. I want four jumps of varying distances plotted out. Allow for about one hour between each jump. We need to keep to the plan, so the last jump must put us at our planned first day target location."

The COB looked at each of the senior officers as he turned from his anchoring slippers. He had to ask a question now so that the rest of the bridge and then soon after the whole crew would know. He hoped that it would stop any of the more wild rumors from getting traction on the JumpShip and her two attached dropships. This mission was dangerous enough to not have to have something worrying the crew.

"Sir. I assume that we will not be having an escort?"

Captain Copeland knew what the senior enlisted man was driving at, and he agreed with his intention. "Captain Benedict's orders say that he must be at certain jump points, on given times, and dates. We will keep to that schedule."

Robert did not speculate as to whether Captain Benedict would keep to the schedule. Commander Xi had obviously wanted Robert's evaluation of the man, and he would provide it to her in time. With supporting documentation.

"XO, I want a copy of the drill and a video copy of the AAR all on a drive. We will turn it in to command when we get back home."

It would have been nice to be able to transmit his initial findings now. Unfortunately this ship was not equipped with the mobile HPG he'd gotten so used to on his last command.

A pity, he thought, but he had other things to worry about now.

"XO, you have the ships. I will be in my cabin working on my reports. Transmit our jump schedule to the Themis as soon as you have it plotted."

Unfortunately for him, what he had to worry about now was planning and paperwork. Lots and lots of paperwork.

"Sir," said Lt. Vaun, "I have the bridge. I will see you at shift change."

The XO had not even looked at the Captain, because he had expected that statement to come any minute. The XO already had the jumps planned out and loaded into the computer. They were timed out and unless something came up they would be leaving this system in less than three hours.

It was right on time, by the ships clock. And after a double check of the systems the command was given again to move between the stars. In the blink of an eye the long ship disappeared as the Colonial drive pulled it out of one location and put it in another location, just like it had done with the Colonial ship the drive had originally been built for.

This location was in the deep space in the cold of between stars. It was not a standard location to want to be at the end of a jump. Inner Sphere ships almost never wanted to be in such a place, if they could help it. They would be so far from a source of cheap power to recharge the jump drives that they depended on for day to day operation. Then the only way to recharge the drive, historically, would have been to power up the fusion power plant that burned through some of a JumpShip's limited fuel supply.

Most JumpShip Captains tried to keep enough fuel on board for at least one jump charged, that way for emergencies. But keeping that much fuel on hand could mean the difference between making a profit and losing their ship. Some Captains had chosen poorly in the past and lost their shirt on a bad shipment. Or worse, had found themselves short on reaction mass without the ability to get more.

The modified JumpShip sat floating in the space between stars for exactly sixty minutes. An hour was just long enough for the engineering team to check over the engines again and report any problems. None were found, and the go-ahead was given for the next jump. After another hour the next jump was made, and so on until the last jump had been made.

The SLS M/V Styx was in her planned end of day location. It was with some relief the crew noted the end of their jump chain. They had made it to a place where, if they had an issue, someone in the SLDF-In-Exile's Navy would know to look for them. Other than Captain Benedict, of course.

This system was a twin Class-F star system, with only three major planets. All of them were of the rocky type and close to the star bigger F3 star. There was no life in this system, not even the famed Star League could have terraformed this hunk of real estate to support human or even planet life.

It was a good navigation point for longer trips, and the twin stars would help recharge a jump drive quicker than other systems in the local stellar group. They were now a little over a hundred light years from the New Circe system. Even if the Styx had her lithium-fusion battery, and she had used the second jump capability that system would have allowed, it would have taken closer to three weeks to make it to this system safely from there, rather than the one day it had taken using the Colonial drive.

The Styx had entered the system far out from the core of the system, in the null gravity zone that formed around the twin stars. This was for safety as much as it was out of habit. The Styx did not have gravity plates installed in her hull. Those allowed the Colonials to jump closer to planets at a much reduced risk. Most of the command staff and engineer staff had read that the Colonials could even jump into the atmosphere around those planets. That had its own dangers, but the fact they could seemed nearly unthinkable.

Those plates seemed like the future of the Wolverine Navy, and Robert found himself thinking about Benedict. The man seemed completely incapable of understanding how microgravity worked. Robert wondered if those plates would lead to future generations of Captains who simply couldn't think in Newtonian terms. The Third Law of Motion was understood by any spacer who had spent their life in zero-g.

While Robert was thinking about the pros and maybe long term cons of one of the Colonial supplied the heading of the 660m long ship slowly changed so that it was pointed at the twin stars. They would be spending the rest of the 24 hour cycle here, before moving closer to their target system for this part of the shakedown cruise. The next day would give the crew a rest, and allow them to settle into the routine of a normal space deployment.

"Sir," came the voice of the XO through the intercom. "We have arrived in our target system. I have directed all engineers to run their post mission checks on both drives, and to start the sail deployment."

Robert picked up the handset to reply. "Thank you, Jules. I will be there in a few minutes. Good job."

Robert disconnected the line so that he could finish his report. He did not need a lot of time type out his thoughts on Benedict. The after action report for the combat drill would be clear enough.

About half an hour before he was to take his shift, Robert entered the bridge to get a status update. As soon as he slid his feet into the floor mounted slippers he stated getting an update from his staff. It seemed that everyone was already sliding back into familiar habits. It was a good, almost homecoming like feeling.

"Captain," reported a briefing crewman. "The Engineering Department reports the Colonial jump drive spun down and in safe mode. The jump sail is deployed, locked, and has taken over supplying power to the ship's power grid. The reactor is powered down but is on a ten minute restart protocol."

The two old enlisted crewmen read from their displays. If Robert had stayed in the active service after the last supply mission he would have been near mandatory retirement age, just like these two spacers. There were times when he wished he had, but now he had considered that had he retired he would never have been allowed to participate in this mission. " _The world works in mysterious ways,"_ he thought as he finished receiving the reports.

Robert looked to his old friend and gave a professional and knowing smile. "Jules, I think we will start shift change ahead of schedule. I will be here for a few more hours. Why don't you call it a day? I still have to re-read and finish my reports from the home system."

"You don't have to tell me twice Captain," said the XO. "I've been short on sleep ever since I got recalled." The last was called over the XO shoulder as he floated out of the bridge. He had already started making his way to his quarters for some much deserved rest.

 **Several hours latter**

Well into Robert's shift, the sensor operator called out.

"Sir, I have detected a jump signature. It was very weak and on a bearing towards one of the rocky planets. I picked it up on light speed systems, so it has been there for at least a few hours."

The enlisted operator was nervous, but he had done this before. It was just a matter of knocking off the rust and getting into the pattern of things again. He had transferred in from the Zug when he had found out that the Styx was coming out of a refit cycle. He had just been a small craft bay person, even if a senior one, on the last trip out. This time he did not have a million tons of warship between him and the crazy robots that wanted to destroy all human life.

Robert checked his monitors and then the time. It might be the Themis, but there was no way to be certain.

"Stay on it," he ordered. "Let me know if it moves. Please make sure that our emissions control protocols are being followed."

He shrugged. "We are one small dot in a big-ass sky, as long as we do not make noise. Whoever it is will have to come looking for us. The odds of it being Cylons on this side of our space and in this system are very small, but we will play it safe"

Captain Copeland gave the enlisted man a sly smile and pitched his voice to carry to the rest of the bridge. "I will bet you a bottle that Benedict is playing games with us."

The sensor operator was the closest to where Robert's chair was mounted, so he was able to turn to look at his captain. He met his captain's grin, but a hint of uneasiness showed around his eyes. He was very careful and pitched his voice a little lower. He did not want to embarrass himself, at least not this early in what should be a long mission.

"Sir, are you starting the board early?" he asked. "I am still not going to take that bet. But if you want the score board put up I will let the COB know. I think we can have it set up by the end of next set of jumps."

The External Supply Fleet had a tradition of posting a fleet wide matrix of bets. It listed who owed who, what, and what each of the bets was about. The senior enlisted person on each ship had supervised it so that it did not get out of hand and to monitor any problems that might come up. It was a public notice of debts that must be settled when the fleet returned home and not before.

The most popular currency used in the betting, was measured in bottles of Scotch whisky. Those were rare, only available in the Inner Sphere. It was not the only commodity bet, but it was the most popular. That was because of the resale value, when they returned to the hidden system, they all called home.

Robert had to fight to keep a sly smile from coming to his face. "I think we will hold off on the betting boards, for now. We don't know exactly who will be going on the main run. I will remind you that we might not be going on one after these shake down cruises."

The pleasant conversation was interrupted by an audible warning from the sensor console.

"Jump detected!" said the operator. "50km starboard side… very small. Colonial or Cylon type… IFF code coming in. It's one of ours!"

Captain Copeland could see the systems operator visibly relax when the IFF confirmation showed the contact as friendly. His hand was almost to the exposed GQ alarms when the threat icon had gone from white of unknown to green of a friendly ship. The Green icon was just as quickly joined by a name of the "Friendly" vessel. It was about as Robert had expected and he was not surprised by the small craft.

Copeland looked at this screen and nodded to the radar operator. "That is what I was waiting on. If you would contact the fighter and say 'hi' please."

The Captain had been keeping an eye on the time. It had been getting close to the time that their escort had to be in place. Or their absence would signal an abort of the mission with an emergency return to home port. Robert was thinking that a certain Captain had been pushing as near to the deadline as he could without breaking his orders. That was a very fine line that very few experienced ship's commanders could pull off for long.

The communication station operator's head came up and her hand flew to the headset coved ear. "Sir, Message coming in. Putting it on Speaker." He hadn't asked for that, but she had worked with him before and knew how he worked. More importantly, she knew what he thought was important.

From speakers around the room, a young strong male voice come out. "Styx this is Hammer 7. Do you read, over?"

Robert pushed a button and activated his helmet-mounted microphone. "Hammer, this is Styx Actual. It is good to see you. So, is that your ride hiding in system near one of the rocks?"

Robert could hear the catch in the voice of the fighter. Robert could tell that they younger man did not want to cause trouble between two ships' captains. Those can be very deep and predator infested waters.

"Yes, Sir. Captain Benedict has been using the Colonial-built scanning systems to look for any Tylium deposits closer into the solar masses. I was sent out to let you know that we were in system. If you run into trouble, all you need to do is call out on "Guard". He is expecting the scanning of this system to take all cycle using the Colonial's "outdated systems".

Robert could hear the quote marks on the last set of words. It seemed to him that the Themis' captain was not winning over his crew.

"Hammer this is Actual," he replied. "Thank you for the heads up. You and your people have a warm roost whenever you need it or if you need a break. Styx Actual out."

Robert knew this invitation would be passed along, to the other aerofighter pilots. It would go a long way to show that there was no bad blood between him and the crew of the Themis. It was just their ship's Captain on his target list. Of course, that could be bad enough.

There was a moment before the pilot's reply. "Actual, Hammer. Thank you for the invite. I will pass it along. Good luck. We will see you in another twenty four hours, or so. Hammer is out of here."

The fighter turned on its main axis and fired is massive aft mounted engines. It was a showy way to add some km between it and the larger JumpShip after it had drifted closer. It was not necessary, but it was it was a nice safety measure of distance. Its Colonial-made jump engine spun up, and then it disappeared. The drive ripped the hundred ton fighter out of the area in a flash.


	4. Chapter 4 21 Aug 3046

**Chapter 4**

By Cliff

Beta By Nathan

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **21 Aug 3046**

 **LGR 2345 over 600 light years from New Circe, 800 light years from Inner Sphere**

The SLS Styx popped out into real space five days later in a null gravity zone. There was no way that any would have called this a standard jump point. They were far too close to celestial bodies for that. Instead, the transient point of equalized gravity was known as a "pirate point".

They had an updated location of the wrecked JumpShip, which was "only" few months old. Months old data and orbital body movement meant that the relatively small JumpShip would be relatively difficult to locate.

Captain Copeland hoped that they might be able to register some sort of emissions from the ship. It seemed that centuries of drifting abandoned had left their target completely dark. The Styx even tried thermal imaging, hoping to locate the leftover heat from the fusion power plant, but to no avail.

At least they had time. It should have taken over twenty jump cycles to get here, even with using the lithium-fusion battery to do double jumps. If everything had worked perfectly in years past it would have taken the over sixty weeks to make it to this one location. Now, with the use of the Colonial drive the Styx could have me the trip in even less time than it had, save for the need for security.

The escort vessel for the modified Tramp-class JumpShip had only been around at the end of all the jumps completed in a day. It always seemed to be on other tasks. Ones that also just happened to be on the other end of whatever solar system the stop happened to be in.

The Captain of that vessel was fallowing the letter of his orders, but not the spirit of them. He thought it was going to protect him when they returned home. Doubtless he felt he would be vindicated by the mission review.

Robert knew otherwise. He was giving the man enough rope, and he expected the arrogant officer to hang himself. Every detail of the escort's actions was noted in the larger ships log, by whatever person had deck duty when the "escort" would check in.

Robert knew a little secret he was sure the younger man did not. It was that higher command did not have room for a person who only fallowed the letter of the given orders. Adherence to orders was neither and excuse for bad behavior in the Wolverine navy. Both Robert and Jules had seen what happened to officers that thought so and knew what would be done. All they had to do was to hold their temper until they got back home.

The 660 meter long Styx fired its station keeping drives and pointed its nose toward the star at the center of this bit of the deep dark. The jump sail started its deployment and, unlike before, an active radar started its screaming into the open cold of space.

It was looking to bounce its attenuated energy beams off of what the ships and their crews had traveled so far to find. Active light-speed sensor use would be slowed by distance, but sure. Eventually they would find their prize.

It took less time than Robert had feared. A few minutes after the start of the active scan, the sensor crewman reported.

"Sir, I have a contact," they said. "100,000 KM out and down 45 degrees from the nose and 67 to 66 degrees to port. It looks like she is moving at about 1.5 km/s on a line taking her away from us. It reads about the right mass for our baby."

"Good," said Robert. "Pass along that information to the Hard Hat, with an okay for them to depart whenever they are ready. Have the White Skies launch when she is ready. I want her to be ready to move crews over to that wreck. The faster we can get this done the better. Be safe about it. I do not want to have to write any letters to surviving families when we get back home."

The 15,000 ton Hard Hat was an Elephant-class, nearly unique among the ships of the SLDF-In-Exile. It shared the standard spheroid DropShip shape from the trusters to about halfway along the hull. From below, it could seem to be a Mule or Union-class DropShip, or any one of a dozen other ship classes.

The specialty of the Elephant was from admidship forward. A massive, heavily articulated series of manipulators tipped with magnetic clamps allowed the Hard Hat, and other of her type, to move around ships many times her own size. The Hard Hat would use that ability to retrieve the damaged JumpShip.

It only took a short burn from tug's massive drives to get the tug moving towards the Scout-class JumpShip. It did not take long for the tug's support systems to spot the target and her cargo, which was strapped to her single docking collar. Once clear of the Styx and its fragile jump sail. The tug fired it massive engine for a 1.75 g burn for a few minutes. She needed to get her speed built up to catch up to the target.

When the tug was half way to the tumbling target ship, it flipped, and then re-fired its engines a second time. It was not a full powered burn, but was only to slow down some. It needed to find out more about its target before any work could be done.

The Hard Hat flew the length of the ship, training its sensors on the stricken Scout. It had been out in deep space for a long time without anyone to look after it. That was never a good thing to happen to a high-tech item, and centuries of exposure to space dust and hard radiation could do all sorts of nasty things to any piece of high technology.

The scan was quick, but thorough. Watching a video relay on the Styx, Robert could see the hull of the vessel pitted by micrometeorites and scraped by space dust. To an untrained eye, the ship would have looked like a worthless hulk.

He wondered to himself. Whatever had happened in the past? It had not killed every one of the crew at once. What would it have been like to be stuck here in a strange system, with no hope of escape?

Someone had tried to deploy the jump sail, but now no one could tell if it had worked, helped, or not. Whatever power might have built up within the K-F drive had long since dissipated. The sail was mostly gone. Just a few hundred meters were left streaming behind the wrecked ship connected by two deployment wires still connected to the outer hull of the small ship. The tatters of the sail streamed behind it like a forlorn banner. It looked pitiful, but that banner must have been why the Styx's scan had gotten results so quickly.

The tug fired a short burst of its massive main engines to stop its motion relative to the Scout. The huge tug fire maneuvering thrusters and started the process of closing the gap to the JumpShip, but very slowly. Their grapple point was on the nose. They needed to get the Tug in line with that, and would have to pass quite close to the docking ring, and the DropShip attached there. They only missed it by a few meters. The fine control jets were fired to match the exact rotation of the 90,000-ton tumbling ship. Robert felt himself tense. Failure could badly damage one, some, or all of the three vessels. It was a credit to the Hard Hat's crew that they did it with precision and care.

The next move was the trickiest, and it was the reason that only the best pilots were given the job as a Tug pilot. Tug pilots in the Wolverine navy were paid more than combat pilots, and with good reason..

This tug pilot made more per month than any DropShip Captain in the fleet. She earned every penny of her paycheck today. She had to flip her ship. It moved 180 degrees after passing the JumpShip. Robert felt himself tense as the bell-like protrusions of the main engines came perilously close to the prow of the JumpShip. After the maneuver, and the firing of a few more thrusters, the Hard Hat sat nose-to-nose with the Scout.

She was moving perfectly in all three dimensions. She was mirroring exactly the JumpShip's rotation so they could start the next part of the job. SLDF Navy doctrine said that she would only have three tries to snag her target. After that she would have to turn the task over to her back up pilot. This person would also only have three tries. If all six tries had failed? They would need to wait a day before they could do it all again. Salvage pilots had nerves of steel that no one, not even assault pilots, could rival.

The Hard Hat now closed the distance to the wreck, at only about two meters a second. It had to be slow, so as to lessen the chance of damaging the target any more. At about ten meters from the JumpShip, the DropShip halted its approach. The triangle shaped plate on the front of the Elephant extended, and the clamp ended arms readied themselves for action.

When the arms were fully deployed, the two ships slowly started to close again, and then the clamps reached out. The magnetic fields from the manipulators started to reach out further and further. They started pulling the ships closer together until the ball-shaped front of the scout vessel touched the smaller tug. Then the thick and perfectly shaped armored plate standing off the nose of the old DropShip was standing out almost two meters from the tug.

Now as one big mass moving through space, the Hard Hat finished attaching herself to the larger ship with all of the docking arms. Each arm was tested to ensure it was secure, one at time. If the hold was weak it would be reset and tested. It was imperative that the two ships not separate from each other.

When all of the arm testing had been completed a group of small-to-medium sized thrusters in a set sequence came to life. First, they had to stop the roll.

That had to be done over s space of minutes. Though the roll was slow, they took two hours to bring the roll to a stop relative to the Styx. Any faster would have caused a torquing stress towing the vessel. This torquing stress would have warped the jumpdrive, damaging it further than it already was.

Robert, who was in constant contact with the captain of the Hard Hat, could occasionally hear the stress of the tug's pilot through the communicator. Several times he heard what must have been the tail end of a stream of invective from the pilot coming over the mic of the Hard Hat's captain. The deceleration had to be adjusted to avoid damaging the JumpShip, and the sress of the adjustments was apparently quite frustrating.. It was very unseemly behavior, but Robert let it slide. The pilot had enough on her plate already.

She did get points for being able to snag the errant JumpShip on the first try. The next step was to stop the end-over-end rotation of the 90,000ton JumpShip, which somehow had developed while it had been in this star system. They wanted to do this maneuver in such a way that the Hard Hat's main engine was also pointed way from the Styx. Only one set of thrusters were going to be used, for safety's sake. This rotation was more aggressive than the roll, and took the tug and pilot four more hours to stop. By the end, Robert was fairly certain the pilot of the tug must be hoarse from her tirade.

You would think, thought Robert, that after all of hair pulling out stress that had been already been endured that slowing down the escaping ship would be child's pla., It would have been right normally, though Robert had hs doubts. Six hours of tense work ad left the Hard Hat's crew drained. They were at the limit for non-emergency work load, and it was time to take a break, lest someone's exhaustion lead to negligence..

The Captain of the Hard Hat knew went it was too dangerous to continue. When the time came, he pulled the plug on the operation for eighteen hours of down time for his key personnel. The crew went to minimum manning all around the DropShip. A bridge watch was kept to keep an eye on things, but for most of the day the assembly of tug and JumpShip simply floated in space.

The first bit of work the next day, before any work on recovering the JumpShip could start, was to contact the Styx and ask for a situation update. The only thing the Styx reported was that one of the jump fighters was in system. They did not know where it, or the carrier it was assigned to. had gone.

The next hour was spent re-checking all the towing systems and locks between the two ships. While there had been so indications of a possible failire, salvage crews knew better than to simply trust that everything was safe. A failure now could destroy both vessels.

With all the grunt work done, the engines on the Hard Hat fired up to the idle power setting. The massive main engine could have pushed the DropShip along at over 4g if it needed to. Now it only slowly built up thrust to 0.5g of output. Any more could damage the JumpShip, which was never intended to move at a significant acceleration.

The Scout-class JumpShip had been alone in space for a long time, and it had picked up enough velocity that it would take some time to bring the vessel to rest. The low power setting on the Tug's engines was a way to safely slowly stop the wreck. It kept the target from getting even farther from the Styx, which was the tug's ride home.

Now that the ship was not getting farther from help, it now started to slowly make its way toward the other ships. This allowed the next phase to start in the recovery of the target. A group of three repair techs entered a repair tube that had extended out from the primary hull of the Hard Hat, through the armored plate and arms that connected the two ships.

The tug-class onboard computer systems had been loaded with the schematics for most ships that had been produced up until the SLDF had left on its Exodus. This included all civilian ships that had been designed during that time frame. That way the tugs would be able to help them, when they got into trouble. The techs would use this information to make a survey of their salvage prize.

It was easy for the repair techs to direct the access tube to the emergency hatch. This would have held one of the four escape pods while the Scout-class was operable. The tube sealed up tight to its target, and the crews tried to open the hatch, but soon they were stopped by built in safeties that were still working. Without power, the hatch indicator still registered the passage as open to space, and would not budge.

That obstacle took the survey team a few hours to overcome. Each lock had to be cut through, one by one. By the time they made it into the ship, the first group had little air left. Their primary job was to patch as many holes in the skin of the craft as they could and close any open hatches.

They also ended up counting all the dead bodies, still held by the hulk after centuries. The mummified remains of over twenty people were found, in different areas of the ship. That was far more people than the crew of the little JumpShip was supposed to have. This first group also found out that all the doors and hatches to the DropShip, and the main bridge of the JumpShip were locked down tight.

It took three days for the two ships to make it back to the target location, just two Km from the Styx and the jump point. The Styx's other DropShip, the White Skies, was not launched until the second day of the recovery. She used her small craft to send crews over to the hulk a few at a time.

The two recovered ships would be lifeless hulks, at least until their fusion engine could be fixed. Until then the Hard Hat was supplying all the power to run the lights and repair equipment on the Scout. If this had been done by any other class of DropShip, it might have been a problem. For the Hard Hat it was just another day at the office, and the work went on.

The Captain of the Hard Hat was a rail-thin man with skin that looked too thin for a living person. He had all the appearance of someone who spent too much time in space and preferred for it to stay that way. It did not seem to matter to him what the health effects might be.

Since they did not have to exercise emissions protocols, he used the radio to transmit a live image to his Robert. He was of the opinion, that if you had to deliver bad news you should be able to look your boss in the eyes when you give it.

"Sir, said the Hard Hat's captain, "We cannot get this ship to jump on her own core. We have completed all the repairs that we can using our allotted spares. We should have a detailed list of possible item or systems, which need to be fixed for a bigger facility. My team has done everything that they can with our limitations of parts and time."

He had hoped that some spares and a little work would be enough to get this Scout back into service. Before the Colonials had moved in he would have told his mission commander just to blow the wreck to bits and move on. Times had changed. The Colonial drive meant that this ship was now salvageable. That was all a tug commander would wish for.

A third and new image was soon displayed on the screen being used for this meeting. He started talking as soon as his image cam on. "Captain. Can you give everyone an update, to what your people have found out about this ship?" This was from the Captain of the White Skies. He was the youngest of the three men, and on his first mission outside of the home system. He was still trying to figure out where and how he fit in.

The thin Captain of the Tug came back on the line, and he had a frown on his face. It was his opinion that this should be handled via written reports, not chatting on a video conference. But he had been asked a direct question, and it needed to be answered.

"We know that all of the escape craft were ejected. Not used, just ejected from the ship. All the hatches, bay doors, and anything else that would open to space had been opened to space. Mostly likely due to a computer or system command. The only hatches that were not opened were the ones going to the Dropship and to the Bridge. The Bridge hatch was dogged and locked from the inside. I can tell you that it took some time and precision cutting to get inside of both of those areas."

"When we did get the hatch open to the Bridge we found one body. Female. We think that she was in her late teens or early 20's, but we are not for sure. It looks like she opened the ship to space. Why was this done we do not know, and we might never know. All of the data storage areas are ruined and with the ship open to space. Any lose paper or notebooks went out airlocks at the same time the air did. Kerensky knows where that all is now. We were going to do a burial in space for everyone, as was planned for before we left New Circe. Now that this might be a crime scene? We have put everybody in body bags and stored them. All the personnel effects have been cataloged and boxed. I had them put it the same room as all the bodies."

It was apparent that talking about dealing with dead bodies was wearing on the tug ship's master. He gave his head a slight shake to clear some remembered image.

Robert stepped in.

"Thank you, Captain," he said. "I know stuff like that is hard to deal with. Please pass along to your crew that they did a top shelf job, and it will be reported as such when we get back home. What about the rest of the ship?"

"The JumpShip's hull has been patched and is now air tight and good for jumping." replied the Hard Hat's captain. "All of the computers have been damaged by cosmic rays, but no more so than was expected. We are repairing a lot of the computer and support systems with the spares we have. But this hulk will need a complete software reinstall. We do not have the right software here."

"The jump sail will have to be replaced. We had to cut what was left and just let it float off. It was getting in the way of other tasks, and it was of no use to us. It will be cheaper to replace most of the power system instead of trying to repair it. The entire helium system will have to be replaced all the way from the main holding tanks to the seals going into the core. The Fusion engine will have to have some rebuilding, but we think it can be repaired. Overall not too bad. If we had a Yard ship here? We could have gotten her fully jump ready in a month or so.

He shrugged. "As it is, we need to go with Plan B after all."

Plan A had been to repair the Scout in place, put a skeleton crew aboard her, and jump her back to New Circe. It would have taken a while, but with escorts it was by far the safest method,

Plan B was riskier, even if only because it involved a new techniquie. The Styx would need to carry the Scout to her destination using the Colonial drive. That still seemed impossible to Robert, but it was apparently quite possible.

The Tug captain stopped talking, and checked his notes, and took a sip of water from a zero g bulb. "We have been checking out the leopard CV. Her computers were not as damaged as the JumpShips, so we found out that she was built for House Kurita around 2705. How did it wind up on this side of space we could not find out. Well, not yet."

He gave the camera a sly grin. "She was sealed but is in bad shape. It's nothing that a good cleaning, could not take care of. She was being used as a pirate vessel operating in and around the Free Worlds League. The records end around 2825. She has five fighters loaded, all of them damaged. Some more than others, but all have seen battle before they were stranded out here."

"We found a Cheetah, a complete lance of Lightnings, a huge Stuka, and the worst damaged is an Ironsides. I do not know if we have parts to repair them, even back on New Circe. We did not expect to see them. We assumed the ship had been stripped. It is a decent haul, but I would bet that they will wind up in storage or scrapped for spare parts."

The meeting went on for another half hour before Robert put an end to it. They were starting to rehash items that had already been covered or out of their control.

"That does it gentlemen," he said. "Let's wrap this up. I think we have covered everything now. I want to start pushing the Scout towards the Styx and get her tied down by the end of the week. I want to be on the way home, with that hunk of junk, in four days ladies and gentlemen. We will have six more days on the road to find or fix what we can on her. I will get a message to Benedict to let him know about the change of plans. I am sure he will really love it. And no, do not pass that last part to your crews."

Robert had a sly smile on his face. He had stopped calling Benedict by his rank among this group of Captains by his rank some time ago. It was bad for, but all of them had reason to dislike the man.

He looked around the screen and then around room. With a nod to each person. Robert stood up from his chair and pulled himself out of the meeting camera frame. It was time to wrap this up and get home.


	5. Chapter 5 06 Sep 3046

**Chapter 5**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up By Nathan

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **06 Sep 3046**

 **New Circe system**

 **Zenith Jump point**

The Styx materialized with little warning at the jump point. It had left LGR 2345 a few weeks ago. They announced their presence both through their IFF transponder and through a prearranged code that referenced their mission.

The radio waves raced out at the speed of light, so it reached the transfer relay only about ninety seconds after the Styx had entered the system. In times of peace it would have taken longer. Traffic control on The Station would have been content to wait for a signal at light speed. These were not those time., however.

A Raptor launched out of one of the small craft bays from The Station. Just after clearing to a safe distance, plus a little more. The 50ton craft disappeared, only to reappear a second or two later in low orbit around New Circe. It relayed to higher command that the Transport/Salvage ship had returned home with a full load of "something".

The Hard Hat had her orders pre-written. As soon as the Styx had returned to this system and the all-clear was given, personnel and machinery came boiling out of hatches. They began the laborious process of freeing the Hard Hat and the Scout from the connections they had used to keep them together during transport.

It was very quick work to release the bonds that held the two JumpShips together. It took longer to deal with the mess that was caused by the unhooking. Before the ships would be able to safely part the small cloud of debris created by their disconnection would need to be cleared.

Cables were retreated and repacked into the small cargo area of the Styx. They were simply solar sail cables that could easily be re-used. Clamps and belts that were used to secure more delicate bits of the Scout were returned to the Hard Hat for use in later salvage operations. Lastly, a cleanup crew swept the space around the two ships for other loose materials, lest they be turned into deadly projectiles by the force of a drive firing.

Just as the Tramp was about to fire its station keeping drives, so that the two spacecraft could be separated, something appeared in the restricted area between them. Operations ground to a halt immediately.

The Radio operator spun in their chair to pass the alert.

"Sir," the operator said, "we are being contacted by a Raptor courier. They have orders for you, and they would like to physically relay them. They also said that they have someone who wants to have a meeting in your office. They say It is urgent but there is no farther information. They are in the posted exclusion zone."

Robert was irritated at the interruption. Whoever it was had better have a damned good reason for delaying operations. Still, he thought, they might have one. Better to hear them out.

"Communications tell them to come on in," he said. "We will halt all operations until the Raptor is in the Small Craft bay. I will meet them in the briefing cabin. Please pass that along, to the Raptor."

He paused. "When the Raptor is in the bay let the Hard Hat know that we can start again. Whoever it is can wait to leave until we have finished separation."

He floated up from his command chair and headed to the rotating artificial gravity deck. They had been in space for weeks, and as much as he loved free-fall, he would be back in a gravity well soon. While he waited, he planned to do a little time on the hamster wheel. 

A short time later Robert sat at the conference table in the briefing room as the Raptor's passenger entered the room. Commander Xi strode through the door with purpose.

"I thought it might be you," said Robert. "Please, have a seat. I am finishing up the download for your taxi to take back." Robert barely looked up from the computer screen he was working with.

The Commander of the Clan Wolverine External supply office took a seat in the second of the three chairs in the room.

"You are early," she said. "How was the shakedown run? I know you already downloaded your first reports. I am sure someone on my staff is reading them and going through them, with a fine-tooth comb, but I would like a verbal report as well. Can you give me the rundown now?"

From any other commander such a request might be mildly disrespectful, but Robert and Xi had enough history for him to understand her concern. She had sent him out with the Themis and had trusted him for an evaluation, even if she had never actually told him as such. Robert put his screen on pause and locked eyes with his one and true Boss.

"The drills with the Themis did not go as well as I had hoped at first. We barely saw them after the very first drill and after-action review. I have a copy of the AAR and the raw sensor data for when you have time."

He shrugged. "I had hoped to do some leadership development on the mission, but it did not work out that way." he hadn't said much, but he had said enough. Xi's eyes narrowed slightly at the implication.

"The good news, he said, "is that we got a lot of data on the jumps back. We were able to load them up and do some tests. The simulations say we can carry a little over 300,000 tons and still make thirty light years per jump with the Colonial drive. It will burn a little less than twice the fuel per jump than what we do under a 'normal' load."

Robert accessed a different file on his computer. After looking it over for a moment he started talking again. "We kept the jumps down to only twenty light years on the colonial drives, both going out and coming back to New Circe, each hour. With more testing we might find out that we can carry even more strapped to our hull.

He smiled. "It would be nice if we could find an abandoned Olympus station somewhere. We could have a real recharging and support base out here after all of these years. A deep space charging point would be very handy."

He returned to the topic at hand. "Both drives held up well. The engineers want to strip both of them down before we take the next run. They want to re-do most of the post refit computer-based tests again. I think it's a good idea if we have time."

Commander Xi nodded her head, but her face was like stone. "I will need that report, and any other relevant information, before I leave. I want to pass those reports along to Admiral Franks to have his people review them."

"By the way it is good you're back early. I want the crews released for a fourteen-day R-and-R as soon as the ships are handed over to the maintenance crews. I will have an engineering team come out to the jump point to expedite things. I will see if I can get them on one of the Colonial Heavy Haulers first thing tomorrow morning."

Xi had a slight smile on her face. "I have had them on standby since the fourth of September. Just on the off chance, that you might be a few days early. I am glad I did. They will take care of those jump engines and that transport can take you and your crews back planet-side. The Colonial transport will handle it much quicker than a DropShip. You should be back on solid ground tomorrow.

She gave a tired shrug. "I worry about that, you know. I do not know how long we are going to keep high value items out at the end of such a long support chain. Being able to work closer to a planet safely is going to becoming the new normal for space operation. Space combat is about to get a lot closer to planets. We'll have to get some real traffic control and defense set up there."

She stared off into space for a moment. After the brief deviation from the topic she returned to the task at hand.

"What else do you need?" she asked.

Robert let his hand move across the screen of his computer, and without looking up he decided to drop another proverbial manhole cover.

"I would forward to Admiral Franks a note that Jules is not very happy about Benedict either. As in, he will not talk about the man at all. Not even to me. That will not last. You know he will not jump the chain of command, but if he is asked directly you know he will tell people what he thinks, even if happens to be over dinner with his daughter."

Robert was tired of spending brain power on anything related to the Titan's commander. He decided to change the topic.

"Now to get to the more relevant subject. Here is what I think we need to make our next step more successful. First off, we will need about double the amount of anchor points fixed on the outer hull. If we were going after anything bigger than that Scout class JumpShip we would have been out of luck. We had to stop every day and spend about a dozen hours just to check and adjust the tie down lines. I think we would have been here three days ago if we had not had to keep doing that. Our checks after the first day indicated far more stress than we had originally calculated.

Robert sat down this screen and looked at his boss. "I know we will be out way too far to use it. but a mobile HPG would be nice. I was thinking we could put in listen mode to eavesdrop on those ComStar nuts. They might not be a problem now, but I would be they will be in the future, and it anyone stand a chance of blowing our cover it will be them.

He grinned at her sheepishly. "I know the stuff is in short supply, but is there any way we can get some gravity plating in the living areas of the JumpShip? I know all too well that I am going soft in my old age. But not having to do so much PT in the hamster wheel? Now, that would be nice.

He shuddered. "I keep thinking about the last trip. We were gone almost three years each way. With only the gravity deck and one or two stops at the waypoint planets to feel the pull of Mother Nature was hard going sometimes. Not only did it slow us down, but it hurt like crazy getting used to one g again."

Robert shook his head, his face taking on an expression of wonder. "How did we do it and not kill ourselves or each other? "

Commander Xi blinked her eyes rapidly before she said anything. For a moment Robert thought she might answer his last question.

"Hmm," said Xi. "I had not thought about deploying a HPG system in listen mode. And I don't think anyone else had either. I will have to kick that one upstairs and see if they have already re-tasked the one that I know used to be in storage down on Boyar base."

She pulled out one of the two noteputor she now carried all of the time and tapped a few keys with her finger tips.

"I will get with the engineers and pass along your note on the anchor points. 

She smiled wryly before continuing. "Yes, you are getting soft in your old age. That is if you cannot handle sleeping in zero g anymore."

They both had a chuckle before she went on.

"You are still a tough old man, and you are not getting any Colonial gravity plates. There is no way in Hades, as the Colonials say. None of those plates is going anywhere near the Inner Sphere. I will take care of getting a tanker to come out here and refill your Tylium tanks, while everyone is on R and R."

Robert hit his forehead with this palm.

"I knew I was forgetting something," he added. "None of the systems we will be stopping in have been surveyed yet for Tylium deposits, have they? The Titan Carrier was doing that, or I should say that this is what they reported to me they were doing."

He had another thought.

"'Can we get…?" He started.

Robert looked down, moving his hand over his noteputor until he found what he was looking for.

"I think it is called a DRADIS system," he said. "Maybe one of the larger, shipboard sets. I do not think the ones that the Raptors carry will have long enough effective range to be very useful. We will also need to have a full set of qualified operators for continuous daily operations. We could do a few surveys along our routes of travel if we had the right equipment."

He looked Xi in the eyes to show her that he was not joking. "They will have to really know what they are doing. This operation may depend on them finding the right deposits."

Xi nodded in understanding and agreement.

"Doing some preliminary surveys on those systems would be a good idea and could bring back some good information. We had not considered equipping the Styx with that equipment, but perhaps we should have.

She tapped some notes into her device. "I do not know if it is possible to find the system and have it installed before you have to start your next mission. Operators for such a system are an additional problem. At the moment all of the qualified personnel are Colonials, and they are still restricted from travel to the Inner Sphere."

She was silent for a while She was thinking hard, and Robert could tell. He did not interrupt her, waiting for her to speak again.

"Agreed Captain," she said. "Installation of the system is a current violation of regulations, but I agree than it would significantly add to your chance of success. I will see what I can do, but I do not know if it's workable to get the system installed before you must depart. If it is not, then we will see if we can add it to the list of possible upgrades for a later time."

Some of the stiff formality left Xi. From that point onward, the meeting between the two officers became far more congenial. Xi was able to catch Robert up on what had happened in Wolverine space while he was gone, and for a while they were just two friendly colleagues catching up on old times.

Kerensky, Robert thought, I have missed this.


	6. Chapter 6 20 September 3046

**Chapter 6**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up By Nathan

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **20 September 3046**

 **New Circe system**

The Styx and her brood of DropShips were busy and full of people in non-stop motion. Everyone had gone home for some much-needed time off, but no one took the entire offered fourteen days of R and R. There was a lot of excitement about getting ready for the second part of the mission.

Somehow, word had gotten out about the recovery mission to the planet below. It was not as big of a news story as there had been when they had brought the carrier Kaga back to the system, but the news of a ship thought to be un-salvageable being brought in had people talking. The crew of the Styx had passed their first hurdle with flying colors, and were eager to get on with things.

The JumpShip crews had trickled back into deep space using the scheduled supply Raptor runs. The Hard Hat had been relieved of her towing duties by another tug, and she returned back to a hard point on the side of the Styx. After a couple of days back aboard ship the crew had started to get restless.

So far no one was saying exactly was going to happen to the Scout they had recovered. Nor had there been news about the DropShip the Scout had been carrying. Speculation among the crew ran wild.

This time Captain Copeland did not have to have a face to face meeting with his boss to receive his orders. This time they showed up through a resupply Raptor in the form of a standard SLDF secure storage disk. Robert found that he missed having a meeting with Commander Xi. Still, it was nice that operations seemed to have become more routine.

There were very few differences in the planning between the upcoming run and the first shakedown. It would be longer run at a little over a thousand light years each way. Despite the distance, the familiarity between the crew and the new drives meant that there was little that required his direct attention.

The one major change would be the lack of escort. Higher Command had decided that the next operation would take the Styx too close to the Inner Sphere. A ship the size of the Titan might be spotted there and draw undue attention. Accordingly, Copeland and his expedition would be on their own. Xi had added a note to the effect that he should be used to it. It was as close to a joke as she normally allowed herself, and Copeland found himself smiling.

The travel time was set for just ten days each way, another ten days would be spent in a system designated PHX 3345. A little bit of time was set aside for any unforeseen emergency, but the whole idea for this phase of the trip was meant to test the crew's endurance during long transit times.

Passing this stress test would be the last hurdle in determining this experiment's success. If the Styx did not return by 25 Oct to New Circe, then a Scout mission would be sent out to find them. Like the last mission various waypoints were given so that the Styx would plan to be at locations at a certain time, so that she could be more easily located in the event of a failure.

Protocols to preserve the location and identity of the home system were to be observed at all times once the expedition departed. They would not be relaxed until the final jump back to the home system. This crew was the one that Copeland intended to bring with him to the Inner Sphere, though most did not know it yet. His life and theirs might depend on whether or not they could keep to protocol, and he intended to be sure that they would.

While Copeland was certain of his JumpShip crew, the status of the DropShip crews was less certain. Copeland knew that almost everyone on the Hard Hat and White Skies wanted one of the few coveted slots for the upcoming expedition. They had no idea of what type mission they would be going on, but it was an active command in the SLDF navy and those were rare as hen's teeth even with a war going on around them.

Almost without warning the order was given to prepare for jump. Every crew member on all of the ships was ready to go for round two of the Styx experiment. When the order was given for an estimated departure time, they were more than ready to go.

As Copeland expected all stations reported ready for departure. This was passed along to higher command on the planet. Exactly at 0900 on 20 Sep 3046., the SLS Styx left for her final exam with two DropShips attached to her sides.

The Captain and XO had worked personally with the navigator on the planning for this run. The JumpShip had to cover a hundred light years on average per day of travel. This time though the worked hard to limit the total number of jumps, so as to avoid stressing the ship and its operations more than necessary.

They also wanted to get the jumps over quickly, so only one hour was set aside between each of the twenty light year jumps. This level of operational readiness seemed insane. Before the arrival of the Colonials the idea of a jump less than an hour from the previous jump would have been unthinkable. Copeland intended to make it routine.

The final jump each day would arrive at a safe or standard jump point around that day's designated star. The Star would provide the needed power to run the ships other systems, without using the limited supplies of conventional fuel for the fusion engines. It also would give the crews of all three ships time to get over any jump sickness and perform maintenance.

It was noted that when they used the Colonial made systems that jump sickness, better known as Transit Disorientation Syndrome or "TDS", was a little worse than when they did a double jump. It wasn't too much worse than a standard jump, but it was enough of an increase that it had been noted by all of the travelers on the last test run. Robert knew at least one SLDF sailor who was particularly affected by it. He winced slightly as he thought about how this new paradigm in interstellar travel would be treating the poor man.

Exactly ten days after the Styx had left New Circe it reached PHX 3345. Their time there would not be spent idly. As before, there was a ship here to salvage.

This system's survey was even more out of date than the one where they had found the Scout. Accordingly, they had a larger area to search. Robert didn't even bother with a passive sensor sweep this time. They were on a time table, after all. Instead he ordered his crew to go active immediately, looking for their quarry.

This time it was so hard to find that it was not found until late into the night shift rotation, almost a full twenty-four hours from the time they started looking. By the time that the next shift was on duty the target was firmly sensor locked, and a least-time course was plotted out for the Hard Hat to make it there.

When Captain Copeland came on shift, early, he pre-cleared the Hard Hat to launch when she was ready. The vessel pulled away from the Styx just as the tug completed its own shift change. The Hard Hat made a hard burn for the first four hours at almost a full 2g before lowering the thrust to a more bearable 1g burn for the rest of the day. Everyone was eager to complete the recovery.

The Hard Hat had had an upgraded optical telescope added after a suggestion from the crew after the last mission. Early the next day the telescope was able to get usable images of their target, a lost Merchant-class JumpShip. The Merchant had settled into an eccentric orbit around the system's primary that had made her so difficult to locate.

The orbit was still had the JumpShip close to the null gravity zone around the star, but nowhere near what anyone would have called a jump point. By noon on that day the Hard Hat was getting very good detailed imaging of the ship. Any abnormality fist-sized or larger could be made out at this distance.

The JumpShip had two hard points on her hull. Both were occupied, and the Hard Hat's crew nearly cheered when they saw the bounty they would be salvaging. Nothing could be made of the ship's small craft bays at this distance, but the crew was hopeful.

The docking point closest to the JumpShip's bridge was occupied by a Trojan-class DropShip. Surprisingly, she looked to be fully intact and maybe even airtight. The second hard point had what was left of a Mule-class cargo DropShip. That ship looked like someone had taken an ice cream scoop to its center. Some of the systems aboard ship might still be intact, but an impact had gutted whatever the ship might have been carrying long ago.

As the tug closed in on the derelict ships, its telescope reveled what had happened to the JumpShip that had forced to keep it to this one system. The ship's hull was visibly twisted. The front of the ship was almost twenty degrees out of alignment with the aft section.

There had been very few recovered ships that had undergone a misjump. All of the ones that had been found so far had been recovered with a warped spine. Such a deformation meant that the jump core could never be repaired.

Since that was the case, the kid gloves could come off. This recovery was going to be done fast and nasty. The captain of the tug broke the bad news to Copeland via a much time delayed radio conversation. Then it was time to get to work.

The Hard Hat needed to first attach herself to the aft section of old JumpShip with her odd shaped nose. After that they could start reducing the momentum of the larger ship, until it was at a standstill relative to the Styx. The attaching of the two ships could not be done at full speed, but the Hard Hat still hit the JumpShip while it was moving at a little over one meter per second relative velocity. That was about twice the recommended speed for a combat docking to a JumpShip, but still low enough to avoid damage to the tug.

Once all the arms and towing equipment was attached and safe, the tug fired its huge main engine. A Merchant JumpShip without any DropShips attached out massed the tug by a factor of around six times. That is a lot of mass to have to slow down. It can be done, but it takes a lot of fuel and raw thrust to do the job safely.

With the jump-core already ruined they could be a bit more cavalier than last time. When the tug fired its engine, it could ramp up the thrust quickly. It went from .01g to one full g of thrust in less than an hour. After a quick check on all of the systems, the DropShip upped its thrust and soon it was pushed to 1.5gs for one and a half hours. This was just a little over three quarters of the overthrust setting for the tug.

After the ships had reached what was considered a stable orbit, the Hard Hat radioed to the Styx more details about the status of the Merchant's jump drive. With the scanning systems on the JumpShip and the radio fix from the Hard Hat it was a relatively easy math problem to jump the Styx closer to the salvage using the Colonial made drive. This cut the amount of time needed to attach the two JumpShips together. The Merchant might never jump again, but that had never been a part of the plan.

The Styx had not deployed her sail upon arrival to the system. The last time, it had made the job of attaching the salvage ship harder for the pilot of the Hard Hat. This time they had done away with that problem.

Both the Styx and the Hard Hat fired their smaller station-keeping drives in a complex dance. They started only about a couple of hundred kilometers apart following the Styx's jump, but in only a few hours the ships were only tens of meters apart. That would be close enough for now.

After conferring with the Hard Hat. Captain Copeland ordered a halt to the whole operation until all of the crews could get some rest. This job might require less care than the recovery of the Scout, but there was still little room for the errors brought on by fatigue. They were ahead of schedule and had the time to do things right.

Following the rest period, the crews began inspections of both the salvaged merchant and the Styx. Once it was determined that no unforeseen issues had arisen, the lead pilot for the Hard Hat began the multi-hour process to soft dock the JumpShip hulk to the transport JumpShip. Before lunch of that day the two ships where touching skin-to-skin. The tie-down cables were attached to each ship by space suited figures and the two vessels were now bound together.

While the securing of the hulk was going on, the surveyors and inspection crews boarded the wreck. After the salvage of the Scout they steeled themselves against what they might find inside. That vessel had been purged when someone had tried to take the bridge. This vessel had been twisted by cosmic forces that had warped space and time. No one knew what damage that might have wreaked on the crew.

The Merchant had lost the ability to hold atmosphere. Once aboard, inspection teams found that the hull breach had been what killed the crew, and quickly. All of the crew died from the explosive decompression, each still floating strapped into whatever station they had been in during the ill-fated jump.

The twisting of the JumpShip had also crimped the DropShips to the two docking hard points. This had prevented them from escaping the wreck. Their crews would have been doomed regardless, as there were no habitable planets within the system.

It was undetermined if the Mule had been damaged in the jump, or later. No bodies were recovered from what was left of it. The salvage teams were trying to work out what had caused the damage to it. In the limited time that Robert intended to stay in the system the might not be able to find out.

The Trojan was entirely a different story. It had maintained its structural integrity, so the crew had slowly gone insane after the accident. Surveyors found a dozen crewmembers that had ended their own lives in some inventive and gruesome ways. The cabins of all but one the crewmember had been sealed shut from the insides. Each survivor had done that before they had ended their own lives, and probably not long before.

All showed signs of starvation. Most showed signs of poisoning and malnutrition. Damage to anything onboard that looked like it might have been made of organic matter indicated that after the crew had used up their rations. They had tried eating anything they could bite through.

The expected crew for a Trojan was eighteen, so the salvage team quickly found out that six bodies were missing. Robert hoped that they had never been on the ship at all. Somehow, he didn't think that this crew was that fortunate.

The salvage crew only needed three days to clean up what they could and survey the three ships from bow to stern. The list of needed repair parts was extensive, but it appeared that aside from the destroyed jump drive the Station and its support factories could fix all of it.

With all three of the "found" ships attached to the Styx, some repairs could be started to the wreck from on-board stores, but it was mostly busywork till they could get back to New Circe. The Trojan was as close to perfect working order as possible. The damage to the Merchant was almost entirely structural. The Mule was almost certain to be sent to the breakers.

On the 6th of Oct the SLS Styx prepared for departure. The colonial jump engine was spun up, and the patched together mass of metal and men disappeared from this haunted section of space. Most were very hopeful that it was for the last time they would see this star system.

It would be a long ten days for the JumpShip and her cargo to cover the thousand light years to get back home. They were making "only" fifteen light years on each jump provided by the civilian spec Colonial drive. But they did this every hour, for between eight and ten hours a day. They settled into the routine that they had established on the out-bound leg of the trip, and Robert found that he was satisfied with his crew's performance under such a stressful itinerary.

Robert had ordered them to keep a wary eye on the systems they passed through. His crew had taken the order to heart. In every system the Styx had performed as detailed a survey at it could in the hour, they remained in any one spot. During rest hours the bridge watches had performed more detailed surveys of the places they stopped for the night.

Two days before their return to New Circe, Robert welcomed the chief of data systems into his ready room. To his astonishment the chief told him that these scans needed to stop.

It seemed the Styx was nearly out of disk space.


	7. Chapter 7 16 Oct 3046

**Chapter 7**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up By Nathan

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **16 Oct 3046**

 **New Circe system**

The mass of metal materialized at the jump point in a flash of energy. Moments later, a charm sounded from the communications console. Robert noted with satisfaction that automated systems around New Circe were already starting to ping his flotilla a few seconds after they entered the system.

The Colonial drive did not give that much of an "entrance wave" compared to a normal drive, but that did not mean that there was not something there. You just needed to know what to look for. That, and you had to be looking in the right direction. If all of the stars were aligned AND you were looking in the right direction AND you had the right equipment AND if you had the right software you would have about a thirty to forty-five second warning before a ship was in your teeth. It was better than nothing, but not but not by much. It also was a lot shorter than the Star League Navy was used to having to work with. It was also more time than the Colonials Navy was used to having at all.

With the electronic handshakes done, the jumpship had to endure a quick flyby of a pair of Visigoths and an armed Colonial Fleet Raptor jump fighter. They had been sent out to double check the Styx's identity as well as those of her consorts. It was only after the flybys were done that they were given permission to launch their dropships.

Captain Copeland was doubtful that the fighters or the crew on the transfer station had noticed that they had already cut the hulk of a jumpship loose from the Styx before the first flyby. He had taken the liberty because he had known he could be identified, and because the process would take long enough that the flyby would be over before the two Jumpships were able to fully detach.

The Styx kept an eye on the two fighters while the Merchant jumpship was slowly pushed towards the transfer Station by the tug. Robert watched them on the sensor plot, but found his eyes drawn to the response craft. There was something odd about the way the fighters were acting, but he could not put his figure on what was going on just yet.

Ten minutes after the jumpship had returned to New Circe, a second Raptor was seen leaving the modified hulk of a jumpship and jump away. Someone on the station near the planet must have thought that the Styx returning early was worth some bit of fuel to be used. Robert knew that it should have been at least a couple of hours between one of those craft should be approaching. Someone must be in a real hurry.

Even with a Raptor courier being sent, he had a few minutes. He busied himself working on the relief rotation that would allow his crew some down-time. Minutes later, a Raptor jumped in next to the transit station and transmitted a message to the jumpship on tight beam.

The unusual use of the courier had caught the crew's attention as well. A silence slowly fell over the bridge as everyone waited for the communication to transfer and decrypt. After a moment or two a chime once again sounded from the communications console.

"Sir," said the CommTech on duty. "We are picking a message coming from the new Raptor. It is addressed to you, by name, and the Navigation Sections. The message is complete. It was a text burst, only."

Robert frowned. This was not the normal way to do business. A classified order should have been marked to the attention of the captain of the ship, not to him by name. A strange message addressed to a specific person from command was unusual enough that it would spark the rumor mill among the crew. Such messages could be bad for discipline. Already he could feel the tension coming from his bridge crew.

He thought for a moment about how to handle such a thing. At the very least he would need to be clear who the message was actually from, lest the crew get the wrong impression. They might think such a message might from law enforcement. Worse yet, it might be a notification from an intelligence service. Robert though neither was likely, but speculation about either might cause trouble. After a moment, he made his decision. He turned to the XO.

"Review the message header, please" he said. "Who is it from?"

The XO started reading the message. He and Robert were close enough to have few secrets. Also, he was closely trusted by the crew. In trusting in him, Robert was also trusting in them. He could at least read the navigation message and choose whether or not to share it.

"Robert?" Said the XO, "I have orders signed from Admiral Franks. We are to park our salvage near the Transfer Station in a stable orbit within the next two hours. Then we are to re-dock all of our dropships and use the "standard" jump engine to go to a set of coordinates. We are cleared to move at your convenience and contact with traffic control had been cleared."

Jules continued reading, and his eye widened a bit as he reviewed the numbers contained within the message. He could not keep the wonder out of his voice as he kept talking. "Sir? I need to run the numbers, but I think these are for the L1 point."

Giving clearance and the coordinates to jump to the L1 pirate point was something, which was very rare, and never transmitted to another ship at one of the two main jump points. In the event that you were given clearance to that location you still were supposed to use your built-in computers to work out the coordinates for the current location of the L1. The fact that Admiral Franks was not even waiting for the Styx to do her own calculations was...odd.

New Circe's L1 point was highly restricted. Only SLDF WarShips were normally given clearance to transit the point. This was mostly because the L1 point was the closet place that a K-F drive could jump to the SLDFs only full-service Capital Shipyard . It would be hard to believe that those coordinates had been given to just a cargo carrying jumpship, even if it was a listed member of the active Navy.

The Styx had used the Colonial drive for her final transit into the New Circe System, and had kept the K-F drive charged while they made their final set of jumps. Once they had done the proper calculations and safety checks, the ship disappeared from the system again, only to re-appear almost immediately.

When the Styx emerged she was immediately greeted by IFF queries, navigational beacons and, because of her proximity to the vital shipyard, warnings that various weapons systems were being brought to bear. Robert had a brief and terrifying though that those weapons systems might choose to open fire before the CommTech transmitted the Styx's credentials, but not disaster was forthcoming. Mere seconds after the ship's arrival Robert and his crew began receiving orders.

All of the dropship crews were allowed to land on the planet and take a much appreciated ten days of vacation once liberty was declared by those ships' captains. Robert thought it notable that both ships were being allowed to land, rather than having to ferry their liberty crews down by small craft. Higher Command knew it would need to give those crews some downtime before they could head out again. It seemed determined to have as fast a turnaround as possible.

The Styx need to have all her systems checked out, again. The nearly unprecedented series of jumps that she had undergone would have taken a regular JumpShip months, if not years to complete. There was a great deal to be learned from the logs, and a great deal of maintenance to be done, and it all had to be done quickly. Robert knew that they would be heading out on the mission they had all been training for before long.

The last part of the messages was for Captain Copeland and Lt Vaun. It was passed along that they needed to meet Commander Xi at noon the next day. Both knew what the meeting would likely be regarding. Both knew that they would have even less liberty than their crews.

Captain Copeland ordered a complete bow to stern ship check out of his ship. He wanted both style of jump engines torn down again, with all inspection redone, before putting the back together. Things had gone well on the test runs, but the next trip would be the real deal.

The quartermaster of the jumpship was happy to be this close to the planet. It would cut down immensely on the time it would take to replace all the food, spare parts, and fuel that had been used up over the last month of operations. Every bit of time they could scrub from the turnaround phase would be useful.

The Styx had places to be.

 **17 Oct 3046**

 **The Station in orbit over New Circe**

This time the meeting was not in Commander Xi office, but one of the conference rooms of the main space support facility of the Station. It was not the largest briefing room on the Station, but it was very nice one. It was not over crowded with people, but it was over crowed by rank.

In fact, there were only five people present in the meeting room. Lord Proctor Jennifer Vaun, Admiral Franks, Commander Xi, Captain Copeland and Lt Vaun. Each of the people, had in their power to veto the mission at any time. This would be the last meeting held to decide what the end state of this phase of the mission would be.

Commander XI would be in over-all command of this mission, but she was not the first one to speak about it. She was sitting with her hand crossed on the table top. Instead it was Admiral Franks who opened the meeting.

"The purpose of this meeting is to finalize the planning for a resupply run to the Inner Sphere," he said. "This run is planned to be different than any other of the runs. It is intended that this will be the first of many accelerated supply runs, made possible through the use of the new Colonial-style FTL drive. I want to underline that the procedures we have put in place to protect the League in Exile and New Circe in particular are more important than ever. I urge all of you to review those procedures before the departure of the Styx and her crew. This includes those of us that will not be departing on the trip itself."

The statement was necessary, but nearly redundant. Of the five in the room, all had been a party to the details of previous runs, and knew why the procedures were in place. Protocol dictated that these people be reminded of their obligations, but none had forgotten them.

"The jumpship that we have selected to make this run is the SLS Styx, a Tramp-class vessel. We have taken out the lithium-fusion battery system from the Styx, and we have replaced it with a Colonial tech jump drive. She will have the use of both types of jump drives for this mission. The standard tech jump drive was maintained so that she still has a perfectly conventional jump signature when she is operating in Inner Sphere space. This has reduced her cargo carrying capacity down to two hundred tons for the jumpship. That is far too small for a mission, which is this risky to be worthwhile." The Fleet Admiral made a show of flipping a page in front of him, before he started talking again. When no one asked a question, he started up again.

"The next ship that has been picked for this mission, is the Leopard CV Class dropship, Hobgoblin. This is the same ship Captain Copeland and his crew brought it back on their first shakedown cruise. She has been modified with a Colonial-style jump drive similar to others of her type in SLDF Naval Service."

He regarded Robert and Lt. Vaun directly.

"I want to underline to you that while this drive in functional, it was salvaged from a vessel that was not. Admiral Adama chose to downrate the vessel after it failed a spot inspection. Rather badly from what I have heard. We have checked over the drive to ensure that it is in working order, but I wanted you to know the drive's origin so that you will be careful with it."

The head of SLDF Navy looked around, and he had a sour look on his face. "Intelligence thinks he knew that this ship's Captain had been falsifying records for some time now. We think it was to keep drawing money from his government as an active vessel, and it went right into the ship commander's pocket. The "failure" might have been a punishment and an announcement to the rest of the fleet's ship commanders that still have active vessels. Intelligence thinks that he wanted to make a point, and so publicly sold the engine for us to use. It was rather a nice bit of publicity for them, I must say"

Admiral Franks had a sly smile on his face and the sour looked was gone like a puff of smoke in the wind. "I might have to add, that bit of punishment to my own playbook."

He shook his head, then returned to the subject at hand.

"Outwardly the engines do not change the looks of the Hobgoblin. She looks a little fatter, but well within the variation caused by patchwork repairs similar to those found in the Inner Sphere. The weapons, armor, and layout are all the same as a stock Leopard CV. Despite that, we would prefer that no one get too close a look at her, just in case."

"She is going to be the escort for this mission. She will be carrying the same fighters she was found with by Captain Copeland. We were able to refurbish them. This has the effect that it will lower the startup cost of this mission. It only cost us a few spare parts, and some fuel to train up the pilots and support crews on how to use those ancient machines." Again, the Admiral stopped talking and waited for questions. It also gave time for the recorders to do their jobs in other rooms.

"All have been fully repaired, so that will give you the 25ton F-10 Cheetah, a lance of 50ton LTN-g15 Lighting, and your heavy hitter will be a 100ton STU K5 Stuka. A lot of the parts had to be handmade, but we had the manpower and the money to do the job in time. We were happy not to have to risk using fighters not known within the Inner Sphere, but you may be short on spares for them."

"They are now up to the tech level and appearance that we saw being used by the House Militaries on our last visit. The 65ton IRN-SD1 Ironsides has also been repaired to the same weapons tech level as the rest of squadron. Some in the Fleet, wanted to keep the hull for deployment in the fleet. That is after we took the time and budget hit in upgrading it to IRN-SD1b." This statement was for the recorders and for anyone who reviewed the public record of this meeting.

Franks gives a slight chuckle, which was very heartfelt. "The Fleet Quartemaster vetoed that plan. It was deemed that it would be too expensive to keep a one-off fighter in serviceable condition for any length of time. So, she is going with you. Your 6th fighter is an 80ton Vulcan VLC-5N. It is one of the two combat craft that we bought off of some refugees. They were the ones that the Pegasus picked up last month. The other Vulcan they had is going to be part of your cargo to sell. If you dump both of those fighters before you get back? It would save a lot of trouble for the fleet in the long term."

Franks shot a side look at Commander Xi. "No one wants to be assigned to fly anything that might be connected to Pirates or the Usurper. The threat of doing assigning someone to one of those craft has caused two incidents already. And those are just the ones that I know of. I have had to put out official statement about the use of those two craft."

A round of soft laughter went around the room. Pilots were superstitious creatures, and ones with long memories. The Vulcan had been the backbone of the Rim Worlds military that had shattered the Star League so long ago. It was seen as a symbol of evil, and no pilot of the SLDF Navy would set out to pilot one. Most would prefer to be disposessed. Some would rather die.

"If you will look at the Annex A, you will see a list of dropships available for this mission. Any ship that is selected must be acceptable to all the people in the room." _"Now this is where it was going to be interesting_ ," thought Admiral Franks.

Franks had already come up with who and what should be going on the mission, only one selection of vessels could match the mission's end goals. He and Commander XI had spent hours working on this problem, but he had to let the others at least look at it.

The odds were that any craft he and she had picked out would be the ones going on the mission. Then again surprises had happened in the past. That was one of the reasons that they had to have this meeting in the first place.

Captain Copeland looked down at the list of ships that could fall under his command in the very near future. It was a very impressive list of assets to have to go through. it contained every dropship that was in the System, and a few that weren't but could be retrieved by the Navy in time to participate. There were even marked if they were fully operational, partial operational or in need of repair yard time.

Robert kept his face like stone. " _Talk about having the pick of the litter,_ " he thought to himself.

The ships listed were not just fleet ships, but every dropship that even just might be flight worthy. Captain Copeland noticed something right off the bat and spoke for the first time to table full of power players.

"As much as I would like to have the extra firepower. I think any mech or other fighter carrier should not go on the mission. We want to look like traders, not a raiding force. I also think we should take off both remaining mission-capable Mammoth class heavy cargo ships, at least for the first run. They are too big, and I think that they would draw to much unwanted attention to us. For what it is worth, I doubt we would be able to completely fill them anyway."

Robert had been thinking about this mission while doing the shakedown cruisers. By now he had determined what he thought he needed to pull this mission off. His eye did linger on the Richard III a "Recovered" CargoKing class ship. And skipped right over it.

Even as Captain Copeland was speaking, lines started to appear on each of the member's briefing tablets, as ships were eliminated from the list. They all had agreed with him, and now the list was only about one third as long, as it was at the start. Those were the easy ships to cut off the master list.

Lt Vaun was he next to say something, to the group. "With a trip this short I think we can eliminate the Passenger Liners, like the Buccaneer class and her near sisters. They also do have a good deal of cargo space, for the size. But they are too thin on armor and weapons for this type of mission, and we are not needing that many extra personnel. We might get shot at. They might get damaged. They may be needed later, if the threat level is lower than we think it will be. For now we should play it safe."

Commander Xi looked at the list and she had a look like she had eaten some bad fish when her eyes went lower on the list. It was all an act, but few would know this. "We have two Trojan-class ships, counting the one you just brought in with you. It could be repaired in a few weeks, but that would only give you about 3,000 tons of cargo per ship. They have above average weapons and armor for the time, but they are very weak in lift capacity. As it is, the one Trojan we have on hand is rarely used, since we pulled it off one of the four ComStar ships we have collected. It is also quite unpopular with crews."

A few nods went around the table. Similar to the Vulcan, the Trojan was known primarily in opposition to the Star League, rather than in its defense. Giving such a vessel the honor of this mission would be distasteful to many.

Captain Copeland scratched at his chin idly. Something he had thought about during the first stage of the Styx's testing occurred to him. The Trojan might not be popular, but it might just be what this trip needed. The vessel had been built as a disguised combat ship, intended for blockade running. On this trip such a thing might come in handy.

"If we took two of our Mules it would give us a lot of lift, but again they are very light on self-defense. How about we take one of the Trojans, and one of the Mules?"

He continued, thinking out loud. "I'd like to keep the crews of the White Skies and the Hard Hat, if possible. Both crews are familiar with the Styx and her capabilities at this point, and both performed admirably under stressful conditions. Both the Mule and the Trojan and spheroid, so neither crew should require much time to adjust."

No one said anything for a moment. Robert seemed not to notice. Another thought struck him, and he turned to the others.

"Speaking of cargo lifting capability. Do we have a shopping list compiled yet?" Robert looked around the room and he could feel Jules start to straighten his back some.

"We have." Everyone turned to look at the Lord Protector and waited for her to finish her statement. She was the Lord Protector, and the leader of their people. It was not normal for her to have a speaking role in this, but these were new times.

"With the war production fully on in all of our factories, we are running out of or wearing out a lot of things, Captain. Agriculture for one is starting to suffer. We need you to find any type of Industrialmechs, large and small machine tools, construction, and farming equipment of almost any type. The last can be wheeled, tracked, or even hover, for all I care. We have been or will be helping in the feeding of 50,000 extra people for a year, at least. And that it has drained or long-term storage food at an alarming rate. We also would like to improve the genetic diversity in our food animals."

She passed a piece of paper with that was filled from top to bottom with hand written notes towards Captain Copeland. There was a more, a lot more detailed list that would be put into a digital from. This note was something she or her staff had been working on for a while.

"These are the specifics of what is needed. It is a more varied list than normal for a supply run." Normally the SLDF wanted to be very standardized when it went looking to acquire, so that it would make there logistic easier in the long term.

Captain Copeland and Lt Vaun both looked at the list for the very first time. Commander Xi picked up where the Lord Proctor left off after only about half a minute. While the two man reviewed the list that she had both seen and help draw up over what seemed like a year ago.

"We can also use any consumer goods, any kind of civilian vehicles, and any spare fusion engines you can find. Any one of those things you bring in is one we do not have to take the time to build on our own. Any military DropShip hull would be appreciated. We can use more large cargo carriers, even with the extra ships the Colonials have. They do not need to have working engines or engines at all. Even hulks will do. We can refit existing vessels but at the moment we cannot build new hulls. If they cannot be refit, they can be repurposed to support space-based industry."

"We can also use more of the 1ton medium class laser systems. We would prefer the Martell or Magna styles, but any will work for what we need. We would like to have another hundred or so in storage, and for combat replacements." She could tell that this was causing some confusion with the last statement, so she went into more detail after a few seconds lull of dead air.

"We have sold our existing stock to the Colonials for their Viper MK VII upgrades. Our newer tech lasers of that class saved weight by removing a lot of the integral energy storage. This provided a better energy surge into those weapons than the older style weapons. The current generation of Colonial Vipers just cannot support the energy budget for the newer tech weapons. It has been decided at the strategic level that it's not worth building or modifying an existing factory to make a few dozen a month, at best, of this weapon. We will buy what we need to refit existing craft, then focus on fixing the power problem."

"As always. If you see any war machines that look interesting please do your best to pick them up, or get as much detailed information as you can about them. We noticed on the last run that the technological collapse may have slowed down, but we need to know more. We would like to know why the slide has stopped, and if it has, if it started to climb back up again."

"We picked up rumors that a Star League Library Core might have been found on Helm in Marik space. We need to find out if it is true that secrets of the League may be held by mercenaries." This last was said with a sneer. The word "mercenaries' might simply have been "scum".

She continued. "Also, on the list are some Jumpship parts. We would like you to make a big show of looking for the jumpship parts, we have listed on the master list. It will be very useful in maintaining your cover story, and we could always use them down the road."

Robert was stunned. This was an extensive list, and a very detailed one at that. When he had made the last run the list had been nothing like this. He assumed that as before he would be given some discretion to look for other things not on the list. The face that the list was so extensive made him doubt that.

One thought that keep ringing in his head as Lord Protector Vaun kept going and going. Finally, he had to ask.

"This is a hell of a list of cargos and finding 10,000 tons of it is going to cost a lot. I thought we were going to take some of the Tomahawks, Tridents, or maybe some Sabers that they found on the Kaga."

Robert shot a look over to Jules and Commander Xi while he was talking. "But, I read just before I came over that the other day. It was decided that all of them were staying on the books and assigned primary pilots. And the fleet wanted more of them built, not have the numbers thinned down. Also, why do you want wheeled or tracked framing equipment? I would think that we would want to use the more efficient farming mechs with all of the new land that is being prepared? All of that now is going to cost. So now I must ask. What am I going to use for resources to fund this little shopping trip?" He was just starting to rethink about wanting one of the Mammoths.

Commander Xi looked at both Robert and Jules. She could not wait until she told then what they were going to carrying. So, with only what would be called an evil grin, she let the cat out of the bag for the first time to a larger audience. The sell list had been one of the closest guarded secrets within the Star League in Exile. Most of the time it would not be released to the general population, until well after the fleet had left the system. That way had been found to work the best and cause the least amount of issue both publicly and in the political rings.

"The reason we need the normal and very low tech wheeled and tracked farm equipment, is that the Colonials need a lot of it to get them off of the algae vat food. At least they are going to need it if they want to grow their own food in the near future. You are right that industrial scale farming mechs are more efficient on large and medium scale operations. But the average Colonial tends to freak out around anything that even remotely looks like a biped metal Cylon. That is why we would like you to pick them up. It is for trade to the munchkins, when they start asking from them in larger numbers."

Commander XI had a slight smile on her face. "Now, as for what you will be trading? For the first mission. We are going to load a hundred ultra-class 5 auto cannons and a few dozen tons of ammunition for them. They are mainly Kawabata Weapons Industries, or as you might know them, KWI built. We identified a few other manufactures from before the Exodus, but they are almost identical. It would be nice if there were more."

She noticed that Robert was about to raise an objection, and held up a hand to forestall him.

"I know, Captain. The production of the Class 5 Ultra LBXs, or HODs, is going full bore. But it still has not meet the demand for them for the deployed forces. Only about five percent of the monthly output is going to replacing the older Ultra 5s used by ground units. The rest is being put on to Warships, upgrading dropships, and then they are going into the aerofighters."

Commander Xi shot the Lord Protector a look. "The Quartermaster Department has directed that for every two ultras still in the field, one must be kept in storage, as a potential replacement in case of combat loss or some other issue. As more HODs make it to the ground forces, more Ultras will be available for this mission for you to trade. The ones we are loading now are the oldest and most worn out of the whole lot. Some may date as far back as the fall of the Star League, and that should help you sell them. We are keeping the best weapons in case something goes wrong with the new ones still in the field. Some of the ones you're taking might not even be able to fire at the maximum rate without jamming."

She gave a soft chuckle at her last comment and gave a slight shrug. She did not care if the weapon blew up in their next use. At least, not as long as it was not her people who got hurt when those weapons went critical while firing.

"We are still working on ideas on how you can demo the weapons safely. We are looking at setting up a towed system of some kind to carry and firing one of the weapons, similar to an infantry field gun. This is all new ground for all of us, also. We have never traded Star League level weapons tech to anyone before. We knew on the last run that all of the Age of War weapons were used. Looks like you will have another first to put in your private log book, Captain."

Robert pulled out his personal Noteputer and started working on the screen. He searched within his files for a few moments, not realizing that the rest of the meeting had turned to look at him.. It was just long enough for every powerful person in the room to notice what he was doing. Just before something was said, he found what he was looking for.

"Here we go! That is what I was looking for."

Robert looked up and realized, that what he had been doing had not gone unnoticed by the rest of the meeting. He turned a little red at being notice, by his boss, and his bosses' boss.

He smiled sheepishly "I have a little hobby. I like taking images of weapons of war, no matter how old or who built them. On my last visit to the City of McEvedy. I stopped by the Rusty yard. I don't know if you all know about it, but there are eighteen of the Rustys left that have not been fully recycled yet. When the ultra-autocannon were brought up I remembered this."

Robert passed around his personnel noteputer with an image of a mech on the flat, low-glare screen. "Rustys" were mechs that the Star League in Exile had captured from various groups over the years while they had been in hiding. Those groups were often using such outdated equipment that they did not have much use to the Wolverine's defense force. They were left to rust in a common yard, until someone came up with an idea of what to do with one of them. Then one would be pulled out, and the idea tried out on what had been a useless hunk of metal. At one time, there had been enough wrecked "Rusties" to fill an entire whole reinforced Mech Battalion.

On the screen was a battle damaged STN-3K Sentinel. It was missing its arm mounted cannon and had defiantly seen better days, even before it had been captured by the SLDF. "I was thinking instead of using up resources to make a one-off weapons carriage that we would have to tow around every time we needed to do a show and tell. Why don't we just fix this one? I don't think it will need to be rebuilt into anything like combat worthy machine. We should be able to get away with it only being able to walk, aim, and shoot the one weapon in the right general direction. I think it would fit better with the story of finding a small lost Star League depot. Which was marked as a key part of the cover story on the other missions."

Commander Xi looked at the image and scratched one side of her nose. It was a tell few people knew that showed when she was in deep thought. She took a few moments, and then spoke without looking around the room. She only passed the computer pad to the next person that sat at the briefing table after she started to speak.

"I do not know if it well be cheaper, but it will be quicker. I agree it will fit better with the cover story we have used in the past. On the other mission, we had carried whole machines and parts of other mechs as trade items. It would not be a break in the protocols. "

All the other participants of the meeting nodded their heads in agreement with her statement. Xi accepted the endorsements.

"Okay," she said. "I will cut the orders and have it added to the cargo list. I will make sure it is shipped up when it is done. I will also make sure they know it is a rush job. The Repair crews will probably have to farm out the work to one of the hobby shops in the city. It will cost more, but those type of places work faster than most repair and support units on a one-off machine. Besides, it will be historically accurate if it is inspected by someone." Now Xi looked around the table and she was given the okay to make her suggestion into an approved order.

Xi returned to her little computer. "You also will be taking the last ten of the junk Class 5 autocannons we still have in storage. Those are the last of those ancient weapons on planet, by the way."

Xi stopped talking and let her head tilt to one side and she looked levelly at Robert. "Well, that does not count the five or six, which are being used in the R&D labs."

Franks had to fight down a snicker. "I saw their latest work a few days ago. If they can get those glitches work out, and can get the specialty rounds to work it might be a surprise to anyone we hit with them. The idea of an armor piercing rounds or precision guided rounds is almost too good to be true. Right now it is nowhere close to true."

Xi waited for her boss to stopped talking, then resumed. "We also have crates and crates of computers that are outdated here. They should be high end systems to those Barbarians on the Periphery. I cannot believe I forgot about those. I will have to order a re-inventory of all depots, which we have scattered around, to see what else they might be holding that has fallen off the inventory list."

Lt Vaun was looking at his notes, punching some number keys on his own device and he was not happy. It was showing on his face. And Robert was wondering if he was going to give voice to what was bothering him. He did.

"Even with the markup for the lostech items that is still not going to be that much capital to pick up the things, we need on the list we have been given. At least not in any quantity or getting anywhere near the numbers that we need. Much less trying to get some of the big ticket or capital items."

He made on odd, "I ate a very bad lemon" face. Being the father of the Lord Protector, he a very broad access to information.

"We cannot take any more weapons, because we need them. All of our production capacity is focused on the war effort. So, we do not have much to trade with on such a short notice supply run. By my numbers, we are at just under a thousand tons of cargo going out system."

On the last mission they had spent months making older tech weapons to take to the Inner Sphere for trading. That was something they had not been able to do for this mission. The Wolverines were on a war footing, and there was no desire to stop making weapons for defense to instead make them for trade.

Admiral Franks had a look on his face like he wanted to space tape the Lt's mouth shut.

"Do not worry Lt." he said, nearly clipping his words. "We have thought of that, even before you were asked to take the Styx on her first shakedown run. Back on the supply run in 2995 the fleet took the last Scout Class jumpship the Navy had with them. It was sold for funds. Those funds were what they used on different planets to acquire the needed supplies. We know what it brought then, and JumpShips have not gotten less rare in that time."

Now the Fleet commander gave his own sly smile. "We have been repairing the Scout that you recovered since you have been gone. All the repairs should be done in another week or so. When it is done? It will be towed out to the Styx from the one of the slips. You will take it under tow and move it out system. You will jump it close to Magistracy of Canopus. Then a skeleton crew will man the Scout until you contact one of the Families. They can act as an intermediary for the sale for the hunk of junk. That should give you enough capital to buy whatever you can or is one both the open and grey market."

He made a face, like you would give to a teenager asking a dumb question. "Why do you think we changed the name?"

Robert had been about to inform Vaun of the intention to sell the Scout when Franks had begun talking. At the new information both Captain Copeland and Lt Vaun raised their voices and had a look like a goat eating AstroTurf on their faces. They spoke at the same down and in perfect sync with each of the other men. "What change of name?"

Commander Xi looked down the table to Admiral Frank a little embarrassed. "Sir, we have not released that information to anybody, yet."

She looked back across the table to the mission commander. "Captain Copeland, if you would look at slide 15. You will see that we have renamed the Scout as part of the cover story we have used before."

Robert and Jules did as they were asked and read the very slight change to the story they knew by heart. Both he and his XO laughed out loud, when the saw the information. Robert turned and looked at the fleet Admiral. "Well, now that makes a lot of sense. So, after we return with the first load of cargo we will then pick up that Merchant we dragged back. And start all over again right? Is this going to be a case of Rinse, Lather, and Repeat?" asked Robert.

Jules was looking at the metal clad ceiling. "If I remember right, a Scout class jumpship in working order is something like 200 or 300 million SL bills. Now that would be some capital to buy a few local trinkets." Jules had a funny little grin on his face. He was not thinking about moving the Merchant class ship. He knew that he would have time for that later.

Admiral Franks was red faced, from his neck to his forehead. It was not often he put his foot in his mouth, and he hated himself every time it happened. "I am sorry Captain Copeland and Lt Vaun. "

He looked at each man in turn and gave a slight nod of his head. "I had thought you had already been brought in on all pieces of information related to this mission. Yes, you are right about the second run. Assuming things go well, we will proceed with a mission to sell the other JumpShip after you return. That is also why the list of jumpship parts you will look for are for a Merchant Class. It we can find another jumpship out here we will make a third run and dump it also. We will keep our eyes and ears open. There are doubtless dozens of other hulks out there that we can salvage. Be especially vigilant looking for Cylons."

Commander Xi tries to divert the subject away from the Admiral. "Speaking of pay, let us keep going. If we look on slide 22? This is the breakdown of the rules for the bonus system which has been approved by SLDF and civilian legal."

It was dangerous work being on the resupply fleet for years far from home. A bonus system had been drawn up after only a few missions. It was done as a means, to keep people volunteering for the dangerous work. The numbers normally were on the massive side. This time they were still larger.

"As you both know, there is no danger pay in the SLDF. But after all cost of the mission has been covered any profit will be split on the Share system, which is published to the people in the resupply fleet. This information is listed as sensitive." Commander Xi stopped to take a drink for a glass of water on the table in front of her. Robert found himself oddly fixated on it.

Having a real glass on in space was still a new thing for everyone to live with. To Robert's eyes. It still was very strange to see in real life. It used to be that you could only drink from plastic squeeze bulbs. They just made everything taste a bit off. You would get used to it after time in space, but every time you came back it made things different.

 _"_ _Ahhh, the joys of new tech."_ Commander XI thought as she put the open topped glass back down on the desk top.

"When you return, all of the cargo will be off loaded and inspected. The military and the government will have first pick on anything brought back by your mission. A far price will be assessed and credited to the balance on the cost of setting up and running the supply mission to date. If the senior officer of the convoy does not agree with the assessed value of a given cargo he may appeal to the court system, up to thirty days after their assessment is given. Everything else will be collected, inventoried, and placed on the "Gbids network" at the total discretion of my office. From there, anyone and everyone can bid on what is returned. All proceeds will be put to the cost of the mission or paid to the crews using the share system after the mission goes into the black." When they had been only doing one large mission this had been a steady source of income for many of the crew members and their families for a few years afterwards.

"To add a little extra punch for the crew the Senior Officer on each jumpship also will have a budget equal to 10,000 SL-script in various denominations, which will be his petty cash for the mission. Sums of these funds can be given to the crew as rewards, at the senior officer's discretion."

Robert nodded. This money was for use by the crew, and why most of them deployed in the first place. Shares might be what made a fortune for anyone who crewed a supply mission, but petty cash would be how they lived from day to day while in the Inner Sphere.

Admiral Franks looked around the table before he spoke. "We need to have a recorded vote on this to be added to the official record."

Every person in the meeting agreed to the rules, and the Lord Protector signed off on the official vote. It was now legal and was binding to the Government, by the crews. After the meeting broke up. Robert and Jules walked/floated around Station. It was going to be the last visit to the space station, for a length of time that was not even discussed in the meeting. The mission would return when they were ready or for about a dozen listed reasons in their orders.

They both wanted to see the Caspar that was calling herself Nike. They wanted to see if it was a she, or just a machine. When they made it to the area that they had been told was her dock, the Caspar was not there. They were told that the massive warship had changed location. She had been moved now that the trial had been completed.

The person at the desk had been amazed she had won the trial. She was now in dock slip Number One again. So, the two men made their way all the way around the station to a viewing area that over looked Drydock 1. Robert found himself irritated that Nike had been moved to a slip closer to the meeting that he had just been in. He might have been spared the trip.

She was big, but at 680,000 tons she was the third smallest ship in the active fleet of the Star League in Exile. The Fleet was the largest it had been since Clan Wolverine stopped running, after they had fled clan space all those years ago. The fleet could now deploy four Battleship class ships, two of those being Colonial made.

The Navy also had one Battle Cruiser, one Destroyer-sized Caspar (The Nike herself), one Destroyer/Light Carrier and a Fleet Carrier. The carrier should be battle ready in a few months. This was aside from the DropShips that had been made jump-capable with the new Colonial technology. The SLDF fleet still would not be large enough to take on one of the clan fleets head-to head. But it was a start, and the fleet was bigger than any single planet could claim for a defense force since the last days of the Star League on Terra.

As the two officers were watching the massive warship, the scarred section of the armor shell was being removed. It looked like the crews had started at the bow and were working their way aft. They looked to be removing all of the old and damaged armor plate that protected the old ship. There was not that much of the original armor plate had been left before they had started working on her. That was enough to show them, that she had not been hiding on the edges of explored space. After all of these years without access to a dockyard and fights that she had been through. It had added to the damage she showed with her battered hull. It marked her as a fighter, and Robert and Jules could relate to that.

As they were watching a second, smaller crane pulled out a large multi ton missile, and as they watched more were being removed from the warship. At this distance, they could not tell what class those missiles coming off their ship were. It was normal to remove explosive ordnance for SLDF warships, when they were going under a major refit or some along those line was about to start. The Nike dated back to the Star League, and those missiles likely did as well. From the way the crew was handling them, they were probably nuclear tipped anti-warship weapons. Robert shuddered at the destructive power any of those missiles contained.

The two men were not alone in the observation area. There were six very large armed clan Wolverine infantry soldiers that looked to be guarding one woman at the other end of the room. It was the woman that was watching the work on the self-aware warship, which drew the two men's attention after half an hour of watching the Station's crew work on the warship. The soldiers were there to protect her. The chains were there to protect everyone else, but from what?

Robert tried not look at the woman in chains. She was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen outside of an entertainment show. When he and Jules left the viewing area it came to him, about who the woman might be. She must have been one of the Cylon prisoners. That was the only way to explain the guard force. Why would a machine watch a machine being worked on? It was strange, very strange indeed. He would come back to his scene in his mind many times over the next few years. It would be the hallmark image of the world he now lived in being strange.


	8. Chapter 8 1 Nov 3046

**Chapter 8**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Dan (Do to real life he was not able to complete. Being my Beta reader is very hard and time-consuming work)

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **1 Nov 3046**

 **L1 around New Circe**

From orbit? The object looked like an old-style shotgun, just huge but also a lot uglier than any shotgun that had ever been made. The Barrel was made up of the JumpShip SLS Styx that was 660m and underslung or strapped to her outer hull. It was the Scout class JumpShip that was "only" 273m long. Three smaller bumps were sticking out from the side of the long ship called Styx, which did not have a shotgun analog. Those bumps were the Leopard class CV Hobgoblin, the Mule class cargo ship Lisbon Maru, and the Trojan class blockade runner that was now called the White Rabbit. They all were ready for the jump, which would launch this mission.

This massive stuck together piece of modern art metal was at the L1 point around a cold but habitable planet. It was now the home of two cultures, one running from the group calling themselves the Clans and the other running from a group of thinking robots called Cylons. Both groups of enemies would have wiped out the people living below on the planet. All without a thought of mercy given to anyone on that might have gotten in the way.

This null gravity point was not the busiest area of activity around the planet, but there was a strong sense of a mad rush. Today was the big day for the group at L1, The Station, and the major military bases on the planet. The equipment had completed all of the required testing. And it had passed, or it had failed. Then the failed equipment had been replaced and tested, again. The crew drills were complete, and if one of them had failed the tests? They were replaced with someone who could do the job required, and at the required skill level. Now they were ready for the real test, which would not only risk their lives, but all of the lives of their families remaining back home.

The last two small craft that docked with this abomination were the most important. The first one? It was a modified Mark VII landing boat that was only about 20 years old. Still it had been reworked into fuel tanker, which could carry 28 tons of the not so user-friendly fuel called refined Tylium. The Styx did not need the whole full load the little craft was carrying. The Styx only needed a topping off her newly made fuel tanks, before she started the supply run.

When the little craft left the small craft bay again, she would be 15 tons lighter. This special fuel would have to last the Styx and her convoy, the entire trip to and from the area called the Inner Sphere. A last-minute meeting had called the ship's Captain and XO back to The Station a few thousand miles away. But they were returning now, and they were in the last small craft docking to the odd-looking mass of metal, plastic, and organics.

Captain Copeland, Lt Vaun, and the pilot were the only people on this last flight. While the two officers were in their meeting, the resourceful pilot had taken the opportunity to pick up a few more cases of perishables food to bring along on this trip. So, the Mark 7 was filled with items that had a very short shelf life, before they went bad. The running joke on the long ship, was that they were not going to be able to use the shower for weeks. At least not until they eat their way to the device first, by eating through the stores.

Captain Copeland gave the pilot a change of orders at the last minute, and the little 150ton ship altered course. It did a close flyby of the mother JumpShip. It had starting from the Stern just forward of the great energy collecting sail, and then started working its way forward towards the bow of the ship. This might possibly be the last time; he would be able to have this view of his command for a very long time. That is unless something catastrophic happened, then the ship would not look as good as it did now.

As they glided down the length of the modified Tramp class ship, Captain Copeland could pick out the little details of his command. While they had run the last set of tests on her components. Even the whole ship had been freshly painted, from bow to stern and the jump sail. It was not a shiny or flashy paint scheme, but it had been artfully done anyway. It was meant to look, well used. So, there where various kinds of marks on the hull but was only for show. Someone would have to be walking on the hull, to know that it was not real damage or wear marks on the outer hull. And that was one thing, which Robert was not planning to let that happen, if they were not part of his crew.

As the small craft came to the rounded bow. They could see the name of the great ship in letters several meters tall, gone was the prefix SLS. In its had been replaced with the letter's M/V, it was the naming conventions used by all Houses in the Inner Sphere for nonmilitary vessels. It was a holdover from the days before the Star League had formed. The letters simply stood for Merchant Vessel, and under the rules of combat, she should be safe from most attackers. Below the name in large letters was still saying Styx, in slightly smaller letters than the ships name, was name of this operation and owners. It announces Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale and listed them as the owners of his ship. Robert could not help but feel the heart in his chest thump loudly.

The landing craft entered the small craft bay and settled down on the metal deck. When the great metal bay doors closed, and a breathable atmosphere was pumped in to fill the space. The craft opened and the crew could leave without the use of space suits. When the docking bay was safe to enter, the bay crew entered and started to tie down the craft as the occupants exited it. There was not enough time to do just one thing at a time, not today.

"Robert, I know it is spilled milk but, it still would have been nice to have the capital grade DRADIS to go along with HPG system they put in, I think their just pinching pennies on us." Groused the XO, as they floated their way to the bridge of the large interstellar vessel.

"I know, but they were right. We only had room for one, and they looked at it from all sides. You and I both, saw the final report, if they had put in a DRADIS system that would be able to detect any Tylium deposit, that far out form a star? It would have been massive. We would have lost all of the little cargo space we have left on the Styx. That just happened to be what we are using for food or fuel."

Robert gave his longtime friend smile and slipped into the proper usage. "I don't know about you, but I like the idea of having fresh greens for a few months. Maybe we can have a Raptor on one of these trips, if they work out. They are small enough that they could get in close into each of the systems we pass. Then they could have a look around without being spotted by any locals." The Raptor's small mass and odd construction made them a little harder to detect than an aero fighter of similar mass at least in a powered down condition.

The two officers stopped talking as they floated into the bridge of the ship together. The two officers split up upon entering the bridge and the hatch silently closing behind them. They would check on every position for an update, before they return to their seats and started strapping into their seats. It was not "safe" to be floating around when you moved light years in almost a blink of an eye.

Robert looked around the bridge of his ship, after the last strap was clipped into place. "XO, COB are we ready to jump?" He was using his "command voice" when he was acting as the Captain of the great ship.

Both men replied, one after the other and they stuck to a well-rehearsed script. "Sir! All systems are green. All stations report ready for jump, and all attached vessels report ready to jump. We can jump on your command."

With that bit of stage work done, it was time for the next bit of the play to start played by him. "Communications, please contact Traffic Control and let them know, we are ready to jump. We are wanting to set the clock for a jump in sixty minutes. If we need to hold the jump? They need to let us know."

The Captain was just fallowing the rules, for when a ship was this close to the planet. Sometimes a second ship would stray too close to a ship preparing for jump in the high traffic area. When something like that happened? It was bad news for both ships, and the SLDF could not afford too many accidents like that to happen. It was Traffic Control's job to make sure this type of event did not happen. It was just too bad that JumpShip's crew would be the ones to also pay for it, if they failed to do their jobs.

The countdown clock in the Traffic Control, and all the ships that were tied together slowly worked down to zero. One second the ship was there, and then next? It was gone in a flash of light and released energy. On the positive side, by using the K-F drive, this area of space was now free of obstructions even to sand sized objects in a large bubble of area.

Very few people noticed it when the oddly looking ship had left that spot of space. The few people who did see or notice the ship jump. To them? It was just another ship on a supply run, to support the effort to combat the Cylons. One of the intelligences in the local area that did notice them jump. Only it was a warship, that likes to watch and to figure out puzzles. At least that was what she like to do in her off time. Sometimes that was a good thing, and sometimes it was sooooo not a good thing. Only time would tell in what category this was going to fall into.

SLS Nike had been casually watching the Tramp class jumpship since the day it had jump to the L1 point. She had been gathering information about the ship, her crew, and cargos going to it on her "free time". She filed all the information away, for when she had time. She would work the problem only then. Right now? She was reviewing the repair and upgrade plans for her body. After that? If she got bored enough, she would revisit this puzzle. She did put a mark on the file, which said it was a worthwhile puzzle for her to try to figure out. It would be looked at sooner than other projects she worked in her free time.

The trip was planned on the idea, that they would travel about a hundred light years every day. Just as with the other shakedown runs had been planned. The Styx would stay in the voids between the stars as much as possible, until the last jump of the day. The end of day jump would put them in a system, which was not supposed to be inhabited. Or at least those systems had been that way, in last the report as not having ben inhabited. This would speed up their journey. Everyone would stay together in one mass of moving life supporting structure, until the convoy commander gave the order to split off from the larger ship.

On the beginning of the twelfth day, they were 1100 light years from home. The pattern had to change the afternoon on the eleventh day. That was when they had passed the milestone of the point on the star map that high command had given Copeland. It was the point, which they had reached the farthest any scout SLDF had been in a dozen years. Every system after this one would be an unknown quantity, and it in increasing levels of danger.

From now on. The Styx would do four of the twenty light year jumps, and then wait in the deep of space. The Hobgoblin would detach from its mother ship, and then jump on her own to the star system they had planned to say for the rest of the day. It was now going to start slowing their progress to the Inner Sphere, but only a little bit. The security this proved was well worth the time, and the use of some of the limited special fuel.

The Hobgoblin mission was to jump in at a nonstandard point stay hidden and scout the system for any threats. If it found any signs that humans might be able to detect the arrival of a jumpship at a jump point? It would have to get stealthy back to the Styx and warn them away from that threat star system. No one must know about the Colonial tech jump drive, not all cost.

On Day twelve this turned out not to be an issue. But on day thirteen? The Hobgoblin jump into a system, and it picked up a jumpship at the zenith jump point, with its sails fully deployed. From the broadcast between it and a Union class dropship burning towards an inner planet. The Merchant class jumpship was identified as a member of ComStar and operating under the Explore Corps flag. The Hobgoblin used it low energy thrusters to put a gas giant between the two ships, and itself. Luckily the modified carrier had started moving, as soon as its passive sensors picked up the intruder.

She then spun up her jumpdrive to get out of the area, without anyone knowing it had been there. It took a few additional hours for the Hobgoblin to find a system, which was not inhabited for the group to spend the required down time. The stress level started to rise, as the one ship convoy now had proof they were almost to the Inner Sphere. It now was no longer a thought exercise. It was now all very real.

On the fourteenth day of traveling. The end system was known to have a very small colony on the only habitable planet in system. This was where scramble started again, to find a safe harbor. It would seem, that the scout found that the colony had grown since the last recorded visit by the Star League in Exile. Then there also was a little problem of a jumpship was at a pirate point near the planet. Three additional star systems were check by the modified Leopard, before a suitable system was found that the next phase of this mission required.

Robert noted in his log. That was getting to expensive in the Colonial supply fuel to keep going like this for much longer. They still had to get back home. They still had the "normal" jump system, but that would add years to the trip home.

After arriving at the zenith jump point of that unnamed system. The Leopard CV dropship did not reattach itself to the Styx, again. They were now acting as an outer line guard, while the rest of the ships worked to compete their tasks. These tasks had to be done, before they could start the next part of their mission. They had just spent the last eight hours traveling, instead of the almost 18 hours of traveling. Now it was time for the heavy lifting, hard work, and long hours to begin. One of the Mk 7's landing boats left a small bay on the Styx and angled, so it could approach the one small craft bay on the smaller Scout class jumpship.

This maneuver had been planned out for weeks, and they practiced every day. This was only done after the training traveling had been completed. This time, and for the first time. A remote access code was sent to the smaller jumpship. The battery system activated, and the door to the small craft bay opened to allow the craft to access the ship at a simple command. The 10-person skeleton crews in space suits exited the small craft and began the job of bring the ship back to life. While the new crew of the smaller jumpship was boarding and waking up their new home.

A second and larger group of space suited individuals started to exit the Styx, to work on their tasks for the day. They started the working on removing the entire set of tiedown shackles and lines, which had kept the smaller ship inside the jump field generated by the larger jumpship. It was tough and dangerous work. But by the time their work sifts had ended? There was some distance between the two interstellar ships. The distance would slow grow as the weak thrusters steadily worked on the mass of both ships.

It took eight days for the Scout to be checked out and her jump engine charged for use. Most of the time was spent just waiting for the massive engine to charge. After a day off, the new crew of the Scout went to work on running training test on themselves and their new home. With one more check. The word was given, and both ships pulled in the 1000m wide jump sails. While that was still going on? They started the countdown clocks for both ships, to jump to the next star system. A star system that was occupied by man and had been for hundreds of years. That was their next stop on this supply run. It was now time to start acting, like there cover.


	9. Chapter 9 23 Nov 3046

**Draft Chapter 9**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **23 Nov 3046**

 **Ltzehoe system zenith jump point**

Traffic Control was a title, that was very grand sounding and it looked even better on paper. It was also great, when you were trying to pick up a member of the opposite sex on a planet that was past the edge of settled space. It was a bit of overkill of a title, for what this little out of the way system on the edge of human space was in real life. The only reason that this planet even had a Traffic Control station at all. It was because of the ComStar owned and operated a third rate HPG station on the planet's surface. This was the last point of Faster than light communication system access, in this whole area of space. It was hoped, by the local governing body. That one day, a Recharging Station would be built at one of the two main jump points in this system. Something like that would be a major boon for the locals, even if it was built, manned, and maintained by ComStar.

With one of those type of space stations in this system? All of the visiting JumpShips, that now only stopped here to pick up the news from the local HPG and then they would pass the news to other worlds. Then maybe, they would stop for a longer amount of time and trade more with the locals. It would cut down on travel time by weeks. That was not a so small cost, that was passed along to others down the line. This could become a hub of JumpShip activity for this whole area of space, by this one infrastructure upgrade. That meant, that JumpShips would stop by every three to four weeks. Compared to the rest of the systems in the stellar area? This was a lot of traffic. As it was right now, very few dropships would take the time to burn deeper into the system. Radio waves were speed of flight, and Dropships were not.

The Traffic Control center was always manned, no matter what the hour of the day or night it might be. Normally this would not be the case, for a system that saw so little traffic, but the Demi-Precentor over at the HPG compound had insisted on this manning level. He had said, that since ComStar had paid for the equipment. The local government should pay for the manning and make sure that it was staffed, always. That is how Tommy had gotten the job. He was smarter than most, and he was deeply loyal to the governing family of the planet. Those were the two basic requirements for the job, training would be on the job. The local leader had been trying to improve the education department around the planet, but so far. She had only been able to start to affect the area around the capital to any degree, and "How to run a star system wide traffic control headquarters "was not a currently an offered class.

When the alarm of an incoming jump wave started blaring out of the speakers from around his station. He was quick to start up the recording equipment. The jump wave or as it was called E-wave, was already larger than the Merchant class jumpships. The last one of those, which had stopped by weeks ago. Soon the E wave was larger than that time a few years ago, when a fully loaded Invader class JumpShip had stopped by. It had been carrying mercenary's mixed forces battalion, which were out hunting pirates in this local area of space.

Even as Tommy watch, the wave grew in strength. Then soon, the E-wave readings were telling him that it was a very large ship. It had also must have jumped a full thirty light years or very close to it, to have caused that kind of wave. Tommy was smart. He put two and two together, before the JumpShip had entered his home system. It said something special was here, and he hit the alarm button as hard as he could. It was just like he had been trained to do.

This alarm started howling in three different buildings in the nearby area, at the same time. They were the alert desk of the ComStar HPG compound, the head of the small planetary militia, and the planetary Dukes office/home. The last one room was right above the Tommy's head. It was just before local noon, so the Duke was already at work in her office one floor up from Tommy's workspace.

She would know that Tommy would not have pushed that button, unless told to or something important was up. She was out of her desk and moving before most of her brain knew what she was doing. She was moving at almost a run within a dozen steps. The longer the alert sounded, the faster she moved.

Duke Terry was an odd person. She kept the male noble label for its power with the local population, but she was a woman. That part also had helped when dealing with the Magistracy. That political group was only a jump away. It was just the way it had to be, and it work, so far. She just had entered the room that held the equipment, that ComStar had supplied, when a land line started buzzing in the very small and one-man Traffic Control office.

Tommy saw his boss enter the room, and he started to rise from his chair. This was done out of reflexive habit. She was more important that whoever was calling on the land line. She did not smile when she entered the room, but she gave him a nod and then pointed to the ringing phone. When he did not move fast enough. She gave a voice to her motion. She was stressed, but she was experienced enough to know that she needed to cover this fact up.

"Go ahead and pick up the line. It's one of two people. Why not just tell both of us what is going on at the same time, Tommy?"

Tommy smiled at his boss, and then turned to read the ID name, before he picked up the land line. The person on the other end of the line would not know that the Duke was listing in on them, after Tommy activated the speaker phone. He had not been "trained" to do this, but he felt that it was the right move to make.

"Demi-Precentor, we have a JumpShip at the jump point. The computer says it is a Star Lord Class or like sized ship. It also looks like it did a long jump. Wait one minute. A second E-wave is starting to come in. It is a smaller craft, and the wave has now ended. That one must be a Scout Class, and she is running light. We now have two JumpShips, in system. One larger and heavily loaded, and the other one very small and lightly loaded. The computer says that both have just completed a long jump, but we do not have a starting point."

Tommy looked at the Duke, and then he asked a question he thought she might want to know. "Sir. Was ComStar expecting a cargo, and did not let Traffic Control know?" The tone was slightly accusing, and he would not have tried it, if his boss was not ten feet from him. It was not wise to poke the 600kg Tabiranth.

Terry was really starting to like this boy, a lot, even if his father was a rat. He was pulling information for that Holy Roller, which she needed very badly. She had not even needed to ask or prep the kid, about what to say. He just had done it off the top of his head. Then she blanched when the information came over the speaker mounted on the phone.

The Demi Precentor said the next ComStar Ship was not due for around fifty-four days. Even then, it was most likely going to be only a Magellan class ship. She would only be carrying some spare parts for the HPG system, that were coming due for replacements. This most definitely was not a 175,000ton Magellan, stopping by. They had seen one of those small JumpShips before, and had enough data on hand, to recognize one of them by now.

Tommy was still talking to the speaker, when Terry came back to the world. "I'm sorry Demi-Precentor. That is all the information I have. It will still be" Tommy stopped talking to look at a countdown clock on his system. "It will probably be around another 45 more minutes for any light speed communications, to reach us. And that assumes that they started squawking the minute they jumped in system. Okay Sir. I will let the Duke know that you're on the way over." Tommy looked right at the Duke when he said that. He had a funny little smile on his face. But his voice did not waver in the least little bit.

The Duke just shook her head and put one finger to her mouth. She waited for Tommy to close the line before saying anything. " _This boy has done a good job_ ," and she felt a reward was warranted. But just a small one.

"Well, I had better go make sure your father is sober. Good job. I just hope it's someone lost, and not someone wanting to cause a local change of management." She turned and left the room. She had a lot of work to do, some of it was good and some of it was going to be very bad.

Less than one hour later, all the major players were in the Traffic Control office. Two of the warm bodies were from the ComStar compound, one person who was in tactical charge of the small militia, the head of the government, and Tommy. The Duke had thrown out anyone else, who wanted in the loop for this emergency. She had kicked out any person, which she did not feel was important enough to be there even if they had deep pockets. Nerves were getting shorter by the minute. It had been a long forty-five minutes after the strange ship jump into the system. Everyone was watching an old analog round wall clock on the wall count the seconds. It was getting warmer in the room, as the time crawled by from so many bodies in such a confined space with little air movement.

As the timer counted to fifty minutes, the computer beeped for attention. Tommy turned and started pushing buttons with his back to the group of planetary level power players. He started talking when, his systems gave him the new information it had picked up. It was not that much information yet, but he knew it still was a good sign.

"We have an incoming message. It's a burst transmission. The computer is working on decompressing it." Tommy did not even look over his shoulder, as he worked the systems around him. He was wanting to show that he had learned a lot in this job already. Even if he did not praise Blake every time, he started a new set of setting changes or had to replace a bad component.

A few more seconds passed before he could or should say anything else. But when Tommy did? His voice had noticeably less stress in it. "Here we go! She is a Tramp class ship going by the name of Styx, and a Scout class going by the name of Toy Box. They say that they are the Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale Company. They are returning from a job. They would like to send a, as in one, cargo dropship to the planet. They want to see if they can do some business, while both ship's jump engines recharge. They are waiting for a reply before having their cargo ship start burning in."

Tommy was blinking his eyes, but the others could not see it. He was impressed with the SOP this group was working under. It would seem, that they have been working the outer edge of the periphery for some time. That was the easiest way to explain that they had to come up with a way to say Hi and not get shot at, while they were waiting on a reply. The Periphery was a dangerous place for lone ships, and this edge of the Periphery was even more so than average.

The Duke was the first to say something, now that each of them had been able to breathe again. The less said about their current heart rates, the better. "Well, this was a good emergency drill. We should do it again sometime. It seems like we could use a few more of them. I think our collective response was very sloppy. What if those ships had come in at a pirate jump point? We would not have had the time to prepare for an assault of ten-year-old space cubs." She was looking dead at the head of the small militia force. He had the good sense not to lock eyes with his boss. He knew that his small force had not performed very well.

The Duke turned slightly to gaze at the Traffic control operator. "Tommy transmit the location of the A pad at the "Star port" and them welcome them to our system for trading. Ask them to please contact you, when they have touched down on the pad."

With her orders given, she left the room. She was heading back to her living quarters for a hot shower. She still could smell the fear sweat in her clothes. She could not afford to have that smell picked up by some of the locals, some of which wanted very badly to have her job. That smell was like blood in the water, for those two-legged sharks. She needed more problems, like a bullet in the head. She also needed to work out how to best leverage this new visitor to her best benefit.

The Trojan class dropship made a steady 1g burn, all the way to the planet surface from the jump point. This was not the "normal" speed of a combat landing, or even if the Trojan was being used as she had been designed. She was called a blockade runner for a reason. It really did no one any good, to make the trip uncomfortable. That is, if they did not need to do so to make the mission work. The Captain of the White Rabbit had been a Captain of one of the SLDF Lion Class dropships, until he had retired due to old age a few years before the Colonials found them.

When he was recalled back to active duty, due to the war with the Cylons. He had been assigned to be the XO of the Dropship Hard Hat as soon as he had reported in. It was only when he was told of this job, and then it opened for him by adding a ship that did not already have a crew assigned that this had changed. Until then? He thought, that he would never command a ship of his own again. Now not only was he commanding a dropship? He was commanding one on a Resupply run, again. This was a chance for glory and adventure, again. It was one more day in the sun, and he was not going to risk embarrassing his family and or his fleet commander. If he got his name put into The Remembrance? That would be great! But at his age? He would settle for a positive footnote in a history text somewhere, and a few free drinks at a local bar.

Captain Copeland was setting in one of the empty cabins on the White Rabbit, waiting to land. He could have claimed a chair on the bridge of the ship, but he had not. He had a sly smile on his face, as he waited. _"This was the most excitement I have had since the Colonials had shown up, and the entire planet went on alert. Now all I have to do, is not screw it up. What was that old prayer, oh well? I will have to look it up when we get back home."_

The landing was more like a combat landing, then a cargo run to a planet. The assigned landing area would have been called an austere landing site on a more settled planet. It was just like what a combat landing, would have been going all the way back to the first use of a combat dropship. The locals did not have a tower, manmade landing pads, or even landing radar to guide in an approaching dropship. All of the things, that a combat landing would not have access to.

" _This was going to be fun_ ," thought the Captain of the White Rabbit. As he smiled to himself, " _It was so good to be in command_ _again. Even if it was a ship that might have been a scum bag pirate, in the not too distant past."_ The Captain of the Blockade Runner watched as his crew went through a set of orders. They did this task, as steadily as you would have expected for a crew with this number of years of experience under their collective belts.

The White Rabbit settled on the hard packed and fire scorched earth, with a smooth ease that showed off the skill of the pilot and his support crew. They were only about a kilometer from what must have been the Space Port's primary passenger concourse. The thinking on the bridge of the dropship, was that this must have been considered a prime landing spot. To be this close on New Circe, they would have to had been carrying some very powerful VIPs.

When the temperature display said that it was safe outside, one of the cargo doors started to open on well-oiled hinges. As this was happening. The communication person sent out a few messages to the only person they had contact with on this planet. It said that they were ready to talk at any time, about doing some trading with any local companies. They also passed along in one of the messages to traffic control, which said they would like to contact a taxi service. It would be needed for a ride to and from the HPG compound. On the way down, it was noted that the HPG was in the center of town. The taxis also might be sent to see any worthwhile sellers that were off the Drop port.

Less than an hour later. A little convoy of three wheeled vehicles drove out to the still cooling freshly landed Dropship in a single file line that did not leave a dust cloud. Two were gloss black sedans style and the last was a white panel transport of some kind. It looked more like a minivan in style and function than a sedan. When the little convoy got closer to landing pad A? The crew of the Dropship that had remained working outside, could see the ComStar logo painted on the sides of the lead sedan transport. The crew had already unloaded two metal 9ton boxes. The ground crews now waited for the next step in the dance. Their hands never were very far from the sidearms strapped to their hips, as the wheeled transports got closer.

Each of the metal boxes held a Class 5 auto cannon, within its metal sides. They also unloaded six of what would have been mid-grade home or small office computers on New Circe. The computers were placed on a pair of folding out tables. Those computers had all been replaced in production about three years ago, with better systems. Each of the machines were roughly equal to a Cray XC30 made in 2014. Each of the computers was in its own newly made shipping box for the trip away from home. Captain Copeland, the Captain of the Rabbit, and the senior enlisted person on the dropship walked out of the cargo bay when they could hear the approaching vehicles through the open hatch.

It was quite the entourage that gathered around the base of the dropship. Robert was looking around and mentally putting each person into a mental pigeonhole. It looked like this was going to be a shop and showroom time, before he could send "Emma" to do her mission. This was going to be the first and a very small-scale test, of what this whole mission was about. Robert was hoping that this would knock the last bits of rust off and or show them, where their plans might have any unnoticed flaws.

"Well? I had better get this started, before the sun goes down. They might even buy something today." Robert had said that in a soft voice, so that it would not carry past the five feet he wanted it to. It would not due for the rest of the crew to know that their commander and senior staff were not 100 percent sure of themselves.

Robert stood up a little straighter and put on his patented half smile, now that they were closer to the first test. "Good Evening folks. I take it you would like to see what we have to offer for sale, before it gets dark. Right now, we are short on most normal trade goods. Most of our high end and bulk items are still on our Mule, at the jump-point. We do have a couple of things laid out, that we think you all might like." He sounded like a used hover car salesman to his own ears.

When Robert nodded to the mid ranked enlisted man standing off to one side. Quickly he started opening one of the box's tops of a crate that held a large weapon. It took him only a couple of minutes to open all eight smaller sections, that had made up the top of the protective shipping crate. The newcomers looked down into the box to see a well-known 8ton weapon cradled in a wood blocked and metal container. When the last section top was flipped open the enlisted man quickly walked back to stand behind his boss.

Robert could tell that the ComStar personnel were not impressed with the weapon on display. The same could not be said of the other members in the group. One of whom looked like he had already hit a bottle of something cheap, very hard, already today. He looked like he was about to pee himself, after one look inside the gun shipping container. The only woman in the group seems to notice the look and whispered something into Mr. Drunk's ear. He turned pale and then a little redder in the face. Then he whispered into her ear in return.

She was a nice-looking woman, not as nice looking as Robert's now dead wife had been. She had died fighting the Cylons. Her Aero Fighter unit had been activated to fight, and she had been sent out to help defend the SLS York. She had stayed in the fight despite a growing list of damage to her craft, while raking up a huge number of kills. She stayed in the fight right, till her old Tomahawk fighter had been blown out of space by who knows what. They still did not know what happened that had ended her life. But the best guess, was that she had been rammed by a Heavy Raider. Or maybe it was something of a like mass that was moving very fast, during the fighting.

" _Keep your mind on the job, Robert!"_ He said to himself. This one, the woman, is sharp. That was what his instincts had told him after only seeing her for a few seconds.

He turned to look at her. She must have felt his eye on her. Either that, or she had eyes in the back of her head, because she addressed him with a question without turning to look at him, after that one short gaze when she had walked up to the dropship. That gaze had made Robert fill like the Zug was lining up a shot at him.

"Excuse me, Captain. Could you give me some more information about this weapon?" She was referring to the weapon that was open, but there was something at the backend of the statement. Something that was just hinted at.

Robert tilted his head and stepped closer, so that he could also look into the holding crate. It was all part of the art in how to sale something. "Yes, Ma'am. This is a licensed copy of an Armstrong J 11. It is a Class 5 standard weapon. It has the Universal Feed Block modification already done, and it will handle most common ammunition types for that class of weapons. I don't know who the actual manufacture of this one was, or when any of the others were built."

"They? So, does that mean you have more than these?" The lady said as she gestured at the second crate next to the opened one, which was showing off the medium sized Battlemech scale cannon. She had been paying close attention to every word, and every movement of the man, out of the corner of her eye. She had to fight to keep her voice sweet and level. The two ways that she knew helped her to get her way, at least when dealing with members of the opposite sex.

Robert tried to hide a sly smile and fought to keep only the half smile on his face. " _This woman was very sharp. If I did not watch myself, she could be trouble._ "

"Yes. We have five of them, that we can sale on our dropship today."

Robert knew, that if he said that he had ten of the old cannons for sale? Then the local market would become over saturated, and the overall price would be lower per weapon as soon as the words left his mouth. It was best to spread out this load of cargo, so they could get the best price per weapon. It also would draw less attention to them, with the announcement of the lower numbers of weapons for sale. If they were too big, someone might think it was worth the risk of attacking them.

"Well then, Mr. Copeland. Then it looks like we can do business. I would like one of my people to come out tomorrow, to inspect all five of them. We will be looking to buy only the ones our man says are good, and if we can settle on a price. Is that a problem?" It was not uncommon for ruined mech scale weapons to be sold as new or lightly used ones.

The woman cocked her head and looked sideways at the older man. She was trying to see if, there was more that she could use against him. She made a note, after a handful of seconds, she had put his name on the list of people not to play poker against. That was a short list, but one she paid attention to. She could tell that this man was hiding something, but she could not tell what it might be. Then again? Most people who traveled through this part of space had something hidden or things they wanted to hide.

Robert let the look roll off his back, like water on a duck. He had a feeling that the look was not a power play of some kind. It was just a hunch, but he had learned long ago to trust those hunches. "It would be better, if we could meet earlier in the day. We are going to be picking up some fresh food, to replenish our stocks. I was planning, and hoping, to use some of the proceeds from the sale of the weapons for those supplies."

This was a two-part play, that Robert was pushing. The Styx had left home with a full load of food, but it had not carried what most would call comfort food or drinks. In fact? They were carrying less consumables than what they had during the two shakedown missions. The cover story, was that the Styx had them out in the deep back, working on recovering the Scout. It would make sense that they might be short of those food type items at their first recordable port call. The second part was to let the leadership know that some of the money, they would be spending on the weapons. That it would be staying on the planet, after all. You tended to make friends that way, and it would keep the haggling at a more manageable level. Plus, any storable and unused comfort foods and drinks would bring a higher value back home, if they were any good. It was a win-win for the traveling circus that was calling itself Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale.

"If you have set your clocks to our local time? I will be here, with my people, to do a final inspection say around 0800." This was Duke Terry's planned reply. She delivered it with a smile, and without missing a beat. She did not even let on that she had heard the comment about buying local products.

" _Ahh now for the game to start,_ " thought Robert and he let a sly smile slowly cross his face.

The Trojan was a heavily armed dropship, for a cargo carrier. If the locals wanted to just steal the weapons, and brought some heavy firepower to do it? They would be in more trouble, than they could imagine. This was considered by most a lawless area of space, after all. That was why they had made the Trojan class ship and other classes of ships like her. Robert was thinking that this was moving along quite nicely, and he started looking for traps that might be about to snap at him.

"Hmmmmm. That will work for the time, but let's limit the congestion on the Port landing area. Let's say two sedans and two or so open sided flatbed trucks, to take your purchases home with. You won't need to bring a crane out. We have an old Power-Loader mech on board. We can use it, to help load your trucks for you. That will keep our manpower low, also. Now, as for as a means of payment? My partners and I are pretty open, but C-bills are always good."

Robert tipped his head toward the robed men behind Mr. Drunk. "You can also use a different form of payment. I think if we can get some undated metal prices from our ComStar friends. I do not know what precious metals you have on hand. That is, if it might be helpful to you."

At the mention of the word "ComStar" the ComStar representative turned in the direction of the voice. He looked like he had smelled something bad, but he did not say anything out loud. Robert kept talking to the group. "It looks like you're the only party that likes my cannons, so let's see what is in the smaller boxes!" Robert was back to putting on the show, and was trying not to let it show that the woman was starting to get to him.

On that queue. The nearest enlisted man opened the create lid, that encased one of the large desktop computers. A long power cord had been run out of the nearest cargo bay. It was there so that the computer could be powered up, for show or testing. Before the computer systems had left New Circe, all the software and data storage areas had been wiped clean of any information. When the power was applied to the computer. The stats of the hardware were the only information that showed on the screen in black and white letters.

Everyone slowly walked by the displayed computers one after the other. At first no one seemed that interested in the devices. But the last person was a ComStar Adept and that changed in the blink of an eye. He leaned over and started pressing some of the buttons, as he muttered a chant just low enough that you were not sure what he was saying. Then his eyes went wide, and two words had come out of his mouth loud and clear, and a few heads turned slightly towards him.

"Blake's Blood!" When the young man was done. He walked very fast towards the older ComStar person and whispered into the other man's ear. Every eye in the small group watched the young man fast walk towards his boss. The boss had been standing only a few steps behind Mr. Drunk and not anywhere close to where Captain Copeland was standing.

" _Well looks like I have a buyer on the hook, now to move those bricks,"_ thought Robert. He added on his mental list to bring more of those old computers out on the next supply run, if this mission was successful. Before he could do more, than have that thought. The older ComStar man was walking, well call it a quick pace, towards him. As soon as the robed man was within a dozen steps, he started talking at a volume level that was only just below a shout.

"Captain! Where did you get these old computer systems?" Asked the older ComStar man, who was speaking a lot louder than he should have been.

"Adept?" That was as far as Robert got. Before he was interrupted by the man and his hand flew up in the stop sign, which was as old as mankind.

"It is Demi-Precentor, please." He had an "I'm insulted, that you don't know who I am" look over his tightlipped face.

Robert gave a slight head bow, as an apology, to the white robe wearing man. "Sorry Demi-Precentor. You are not wearing a rank pin. As I was about to say. We picked them up in the wrecked Scout ship's cargo bay. About the only things that were salvageable, in her cargo hold, were the cannons and these few computer systems you see on the tables." This was a lie, which he had practiced as soon as he had read the note in his orders.

The ComStar man was biting his lower lip and waving a hand in the air over his head. He was being very dramatic looking, and it drew more attention to both him and the computers. "How many do you have?"

Robert was already, not liking this guy. He did not like ComStar as a rule, after the reports from the first supply run. Then there were the stories that had come from the slaves they had liberated before this clan moved around the Inner Sphere. All of those stories were required reading in high school. However, Robert had to put on a façade, so that he could do the required mission.

"I can sell six of them."

This was Robert's reply. He went from a half smile to a tight-lipped expression that he had let come to his face. " _I bet this guy is a joy to work for_." Robert felt an itch at the small of his back, just were his holdout pistol holster was setting. Something was wrong with this man. Robert could feel it deep in his soul.

"That is not what I asked. I asked. HOW…. Many…. Do…. You…. Have?" The ComStar man was getting pushy and angry at the same time. He had said each of the last five words space out by almost a second and a half between each of the words.

" _How dare this person have these systems? I have only seen systems this powerful, on Holy Terra. I must have them all! Before one of those animals from the Houses, found them. They were already recovering too much of Blessed Blakes technology because of information from that Blake Damned Helms core!"_

"As I said before, Demi-Precentor. I have six of the systems for sale. I was advised to ask 5,000 C-bills for each of them, by my partners." Robert was keeping his eyes locked on the ComStar Demi-Precentor. He was hoping to find a way to make the other man blink or otherwise spike the deal. It was early in the mission. So, if he spiked this deal? He was sure that he could make it up later.

"Done! I will take all of them!" The Precentor looked back at his vehicle and did a quick guess on the cargo cubage and the number of people it had brought out. He quickly had come up short of the cubage he needed. He was a jerk, but he was not dumb, and his math skills were top level. "If Duke Terry is coming at 0800 tomorrow, to look at the cannons? May we conclude our exchange then?"

Robert smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. _"Damn! I should have started at 10,000. O' well, 5,000 is a lot better than the 1,000 C-bills. That was what we had expected to get out of each of them, and that had been a best-case number. I had asked for 5,000 each just to Frak with him. I should be careful when I open my fraking mouth."_

"Done deal! They are yours on payment in cash, please."

Robert held out his hand, but the ComStar man kept his hands inside the sleeves of his robe, like Robert was contaminated or otherwise unclean. Robert just smiled and dropped his hand after a few long seconds. The Demi was being rude, and both parties knew it. One did not care, and the other party was working how best to get even with the first party.

Robert looked around to the rest of the visitors/shoppers. "If this is all the business? Then I will see you all in the morning." Robert could tell that the ComStar man had just put a major chill on the whole afternoon.

Robert looked at the woman and raised and cocked an eyebrow as the ComStar people walked away very quickly. "Ma'am, sorry, or was I referring to you with the wrong title also? I did not mean to offend you. We kind of jumped right past the intros." The more time that past. The more he was getting mad about the rude ComStar Fraker. One part of his mind was wondering if he should ask if dueling was legal here or not.

The woman he was talking to let another sly smile cross her face. She knew beforehand, that ComStar would have been her competition in any trade deals with this group. She had watched the interaction between the pair of men, with some inner glee. It looked like ComStar had just made the visitors mad and moved themselves off the playing board for the near future. Something like that should make it easier to get around their deep pockets.

"Don't worry, Captain. I'm not as set on using the proper titles, as some others around here. Now, I understand that you need a ride to send a message back home? If you don't mind sharing a ride with me? It's right on my way. And after you're done? Maybe we can sit down to dinner and maybe get to know each other a little better. I checked our records on your burn in, and we have never had the pleasure of your company on this planet. And besides, I know this place that has great food."

" _Oh Frak! This could get ugly,"_ thought Robert. He had to fight to keep his face from moving a millimeter in any way.

The rule number fourteen on this type of mission, was that no one went anywhere alone. It was a rule that must not be broken. His XO or any of the other ship's captains could and would shoot him, if he did something like that. And they would be covered by SLDF Law after they had shot him. It had happened before, and odds were that it would happen again. It might even happen on this shorter mission, and Robert would be the one to give the execution orders for someone in this little convoy. He had not thought about this event, until just now.

"I would love to. But you see Emma?" Robert pointed to an upper 20ish looking woman only a few paces away. "She needs to contact the other partners, of this little operation. She is the daughter and granddaughter to two of my main partners. Besides, I have a rule. It is not to let any of my crewmembers alone, on a new planet. If I don't follow my own rules? Then what kind of commander, would I be?" Robert was keeping his tone light and jokingly, but he was very serious.

The Duke looked at the man even closer and did some more thinking, before speaking again. She started mentally recounting all the stories about dropships crews being kidnapped for ransom. She gave up after hitting more than twenty of the stories, that came off the top of her head. She had not had to think that hard to remember them. That was how common something like that happened in this part of space.

"Good rule, and there is plenty of room. Plus, one more person at dinner? That just makes it easier for conversation to work." Duke Terry was turning up the charm. And the bad part? It was that she was not even trying.

She had on her own sly smile. " _This man was no one's fool, and he is not bad looking to boot. This could be one of the more interesting evenings, which I have had in a few years."_

Robert agreed to the offer, but he had to leave the group soon after this agreement. He needed to pass along to some key members, that there was another change of plans. He quickly exited the grounded dropship again and walked with the group. He joined the locals and "Emma", to one of the sedans. The sedan had more than enough room for Duke Terry, Mr. Drunk, Robert, and "Emma" to all be comfortable in the back. There even was a dedicated driver.

The roads were not that bad, from the Space Port to the HPG compound. They hardly hit a pothole on the whole drive. Robert made note of the 70ton Magi tank, that looked to be supporting the front Gate Guard stationed at the HPG compound. Up until right them, the ride had been in silence. Now it was broken.

"Now that is an odd-looking tank. What kind is it? Who do they work for?" The youngest woman in the wheeled sedan was pointing to the massive tracked metal box by the gate.

" _Damn she was smart,"_ thought Robert. But he did not let his face move a single millimeter when she asked her question.

Duke Terry gave an odd look to the trader Captain. "They are called the Com Guards, a military wing of ComStar. They have, what they call, a Level II. It is what I would call a Demi-Company of tanks and mechs as a defense force for the HPG and the ComStar compound. It is supposed to be, in case we are attacked. The Wacko's seem to have found a few huge warehouses full of old SLDF equipment some unknown time ago. Then they went and armed themselves up a few years ago with it. I had heard about it five or six years ago, but frankly. I personally did not believe it. That is until they showed up here, two years ago with mechs, tanks and infantry." She waved to the fortified compound, and she continued talking.

"First, they unloaded two mech, two tanks and some infantry to guard the HPG and the people that are running the thing. They did bring a couple of good things with them, so it has not been all bad. I was surprised that they were able to rebuild that hulk of a building so fast. Now with more mouths to feed? They spend their money freely in town. If anyone attacks us? Just by being here, they have tripled our firepower on the ground. I managed to sign an agreement with them, about a month after they landed, to start the rebuilding. That if we are attacked? They will help out, besides just in the defense of the HPG compound."

Terry was looking out the side window of the slowing car, now. "The downside is that they get to keep anyone that they captured, and they have first pick on any of the salvage that might be left behind on the whole planet. So far? We have not had to worry about any attacks, at least once the word got out. Let me tell you, word gets out quickly, that the Com Guards are on the ground on a certain planet. We thought you might have been the first group to try them, when we thought a loaded Star Lord and another jumpship had come to visit all at once. That is a lot of lift to be seen out this way." She did not say or bring up about the additional jumpships stopping by. Those had mainly belonged to the only human faster than light communication company known to exist. But not all of them had belong to ComStar, and that kind of information was power.

The Duke, Emma, and Robert waited in the main waiting area of the HPG compound, until Emma was called back to send her messages. Mr. Drunk had exited the sedan and walked out of the ComStar compound to the bar district for a few more drinks. He had a huge smile on his face, when he announced his intention of leaving the group. Robert doubted that he would be rejoining the group for the rest of the night.

"Emma" sent four different messages, to four different locations, all around the Inner Sphere in the short time she was gone. Most of the messages were cover for the third one she sent. That was the only one that had counted, and it was going to the Duniashire system. It was only about 21 light years away. The other three messages were going to random common names that had been pulled from an address book collected on the last supply run.

When the messages were sent out from the planet? The HPG unit buried deep in the Styx would pick up the whole group of messages being sent out. The operators were able to use a copy of the original messages to do some magic on the captured data packet. This captured data also gave them very detailed information on how ComStar operated their systems. This was the closest that a late military grade Star League HPG system had been to Terra since the 2800s.

They will be able to break the ComStar coding, by knowing the key information in those four specially selected and very different messages. They were the first people to be able to do so, in centuries. This "broken" information will help them decode any future ComStar messages, later in the mission. As a bonus? They picked up the latest and "original" copy, of the price list of almost any metal sold on the open market Sphere wide. This last item was sent via encrypted radio transmission down to the White Rabbit, and it was deeply encoded. It was to check to see if ComStar might play games with them on the prices. After the one message was sent down to the one dropship. The dropship's crews had the rest of the late afternoon to be more socialized while they were on the ground.

The dinner was just as good, as Terry had said it would be. A fourth person had joined them for dinner. He was a little older than the Duke, in looks, and it was not Mr. Drunk. Robert took this to mean that they were very close in age. He was very rich by local standards, but he was not a military man. Emma was able to pump him for information, and quickly found out the bad news. Nothing that was on the "shopping list" was going to be available in the city under short notice, if at all even then. Or it would not even be on the planet. That was not surprising, to Robert. "Emma" was more distress and she took some time to understand one of the facts of life. She had gotten to use to New Circe and its very high tech and military orientation.

This was a backwoods planet and it was in a very low-tech area, but it was a mental letdown. They only reason they had stopped here was to use the HPG, to get a message out to one of the Families. Everything else? That was just extra, like testing their cover story. The icing on the cake, if you would like? That was to do things that were a little upsetting to ComStar. Blake would have rolled over in his grave. If he knew what had happened to the organization, which he had formed all those years ago. "Emma" and Robert did not make it back to the White Rabbit, till late that night. They did have a good time, and it seem like there host did also.


	10. Chapter 10 30 Nov 3046

**Chapter 10**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up By: not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **The next morning 0730. 26 Nov 3046**

 **Ltzehoe system**

The Trojan's captain had made sure that his crew was up early. They had started pulling the allotted crates out of the cargo hold and moving them outside. They were careful to put as many of the crates as they could in the shade of the dropship. When Robert finely made it to the bridge, after getting an update from these other commanders? He took a seat and started filling out his reports, that he had to keep on the mission. He had just finished one of the most difficult ones when he was alerted to come to the main screen.

He could see a mostly wheeled based convoy about to enter the Space Port from his very high vantage point at the top of the dropship. He had just enough time to make it out of the bottom cargo door of the dropship, when the first of the three large flatbed cargo trucks, and a set of three 4 door transports had come around the last corner. Robert tapped the duty door guard and gave her a slight nod, to defuse the tensions Robert could see building up on the woman's face.

A ComStar Van had joined the little convoy, that Robert had not seen coming towards them from the Bridge. The group pulled up to the Engine fire safety line, that had been marked on the ground. The White Rabbit's crew had laid out the "safety line" the night before. It was a legal notice to not cross that line, or you were about to put your life at risk. It did not take long after the whole convoy had come to a stop on or very near the line. Then people started exiting the different stopped transports in a wave of moving arms and legs. It took longer for some of them to be ready to start doing business than others, after they first exited the different transports. Robert, watching from the hatch, could tell that this was a new operation for them. It just did not have the practiced look to his trained eyes.

Duke Terry was not the first person out the door of one of the four door sedans. That award went to the ComStar Demi-Precentor. Robert made a note to himself, to try to take care of him first. That would leave more time to talk to the Duke without a suspected spy in their mist for any length of time. It was strange. Robert realized that he was looking forward to spending some more time with her. He also was looking forward to the art of making a deal. He was about to embark on one on a scale that was his top ten over the last few years. He had always thought that maybe he had a bit of Sea Fox in his blood. He straightened his tunic and walked out and into the sun.

Robert put on his half smile, and this time he did not hold out his hand to the other man. "Demi-Precentor! So, good to see you this morning. I have all six of the computer systems you wanted out for your final inspection. All you need to do is plug them in, and then have one of your people double check to make sure they are what you wanted. If they are? You may load them up. As agreed, each one is 5,000 C-Bills, in cash."

Robert was not surprised, when the ComStar man did not offer to shake hands on the deal. The only hand movement he gave during the conversation. It was only as he waved to two Adepts standing behind him to start the required testing of the computers. "Emma" would be collecting the money, as they loaded the computer systems that had passed the final inspection into their van. This would give time for Robert to talk with the female Duke and her people while the ComStar people were preoccupied. After all, they had found out that she was not married or legally partnered over dinner. It was with this final thought that he moved closer to the woman.

"Duke Terry. It is good to see you this fine early morning." Robert pitched his voice lower for the next part, so the ComStar people would not hear him. He and "Emma" had picked up that the planetary leader was not that thrilled with the head of the local ComStar office.

"It is too bad that he had to be early, also." Robert said, as he used his head to point in the direction of the ComStar Van that was parked not too far away. He was digging for a confirmation or for something that he could use, a little further down the road.

"Robert, please call me Terry. I think we can use our first names, don't you? Besides this is not state business after all."

She said with a sly grin, maintaining eye contact with the mission leader the entire time. She knew that rumors would get around, that she had already slept with the tall Merchant Captain. She was okay with that, and well you never know. Dropship's Captains were supposed to have a woman in every drop port. So, the same must be true of jumpship commanders. If he did not understand that every day that she breathed had her working on "state" business, then maybe he was not as smart as she thought he might be.

"I can live with that, Terry." Robert said with an answering sly grin, that reached his eyes. "Why don't we let your team get to work, and we can chat a little deeper in the shade of the ship." Robert pointed to the five large crates with the tops already open.

As Emma had hoped, the Demi-Precentor took all six computer systems, and one of his Adepts had passed Emma a thick package. It was filled with the 30,000 C-Bills that was required. The amount was made up of only large notes inside the thin walled package. Emma checked each 500 c-bill note before leaving the ComStar van side. "Emma" walked over where her Captain and the leader of this planet's government were talking off to one side. Both of them were in the shade provided by the dropship. Emma knew that she would get a copy of what was being said from the recording device that Robert had in his pocket, later, when they got back inside the dropship. First, she had to let her boss know that part of her job was completed. It was part of her cover and it would let her be closer to the mission commander.

"Sir, that Demi-Precentor is an ass. If I don't have to deal with him again? I will be a happy person." None of what she said, was a lie. She would have said this even if there had not been any issues with the ComStar part of the deals today.

"Emma, girl. I know what you mean. I cannot wait till they rotate that robed wacko off this mud ball. The first few HPG Managers were very easy to work with, and I wish one of them would come back." The venom in Terry's voice was caustic, even coming from Terry. Robert and "Emma" had seen it delivered a few times at dinner the night before. The planetary Duke gave her head a shake left and right, as if to cast out a bad memory.

One of Duke Terry's personnel walked over toward the group but was just hovering outside of hearing range of the three people. He wanted to talk to his boss, but he did not want to interrupt her at the same time. Finally, Terry relented and waved him over, and she had to fight to keep a flat expression on her face.

"What have you got, Steve?"

The nervous little man took the three long quick steps needed to reach his boss, before he started talking. "Ma'am, all the guns are Armstrong J11s. That is about all I can tell you about the make and model of the cannons. We have been through all of them. They all seem to be in anywhere between from good to excellent of condition or grade. They all also looked to have been completely stripped down and expertly cleaned in the recent past. They have the modified breach blocks, but they still will not fire the GM Whirlwind class ammunition. I think they will handle anything from 50 to 100mm with us not needing to modify the rounds before loading. The GM design uses 120mm shells that only they make"

The little man with shifty eyes looked to one side to see what the stranger's reactions to his statement might be. "This is as far as I can go, that is, without putting rounds down range with them or taking them apart in my shop." He looked hopefully at Captain Copeland. Steve was hoping, that maybe they might be able to test fire them one time. At least before they put money down for them. He had spent too much time out here not to think that anything that was too good to be true, most definitely was going to be too good to be true. He also did not want to be on the blame line, if they turned out to be junk.

The Duke saw the look, and she also could guess that there was no way would this commander let the weapons out of his sight. At least not without some gold in his fist first. "Well that is good news. If you would not mind, go and help them repack the cannons. It will give me a chance to talk to these good people about getting a few of them for us."

The smile from the Duke was enough to get the man to leave them alone, but he left happy at the thought that the best negotiator on the planet was on the job. Weapons of any kind, much less good working order mech scale weapons were hard to find this far off the shipping lanes. He also was happy that he had given his boss all the information he had.

 _"Now it's time to skin this cat,"_ thought Terry and turned her smile to Robert. "Okay Robert. You said you had five of these cannons for sale. What are you looking to get out of these weapons?" She slowly folded her arms across her chest as she was talking. Now she was in her "pose".

 _"Okay Duke Terry, let's start this game rolling."_ Robert almost started rubbing his hands together, but that would give away too much. He put some steel in his soul, and just locked eyes with the woman. He did not even put his hands behind his back to keep them occupied.

"We are looking to get 150,000 C-bills, for each one of the cannons we have for sale."

"Come now, Robert! I thought we were friends? You know and I know. That new ones only cost 125,000. How about you take 85,000, each?" Duke Terry was still smiling and not offended by the first bid that Robert had opened this game with. This was all a negotiation. There would be a sale today, and both sides knew this. It was only a question of how much it was going to hurt, and how long it was going to take to close the deal.

Now Robert put his hands behind his back, but he still had a sly smile on his face. "Terry, you're a long way from a factory that can make these cannons new. And then you would have the cost of shipping them all the way out to you added in. That is only if they would sell them in the first place 125,000."

The Duke knew he had a very good point. She had to reach into her bag of information to counter his point. She kept stuff like that in her head, to swing any negotiations back to be in her favor whenever she needed it. From the information recovered from last night's dinner and then the need to go right out to send out an HPG message. She knew that Robert and his people had not been in contact with much that had been going on deeper in the Inner Sphere.

"You know? I heard that the Federated Commonwealth was able to put a class 5 system, which can shoot about twice as fast as a normal one, back into production. I think that was about six or seven years ago. What do you think that is going to do to the prices on what these older weapons will bring in on the secondary markets?"

Robert did not let his poker face slip. Well, he hoped he did not let it slip. This was news. This was VERY BIG news! No one back home had known, that a Star League era and style Ultra class cannon had been about to be put back into production. That was, if it was true. If it was it could change a lot of things, back in the nebula. He knew that there had been a few odd reports of "special" weapons that had been used by elite units back in the 3039 War. But all the reports he had read before coming out? Those reports had been marked down as propaganda. After all it was not like they had a spy in the FedCom military industrial complex, or in any of the other house militaries for that matter.

"Really? I had not heard anything about that." He made a tight-lipped face. "I will have to check into that, on our next stop. What do you know about them?" Robert let his eyebrows raise. This had the effect of relaxing him. He was showing some of the concern that he truly was feeling right at that moment.

Robert looked at Emma and she knew this information needed to be checked out. Even if it only turned out to be a wild rumor, or wishful thinking for someone trying to get a better deal on older tech weapons. The more information they had to start, the better. He had already been surprised by the response to the desk top computers. Robert knew he was on his back foot with this set of negotiations. He was too rusty, and Terry was too good not to know that he was on his back foot. Much to his surprise she kept talking.

"I started hearing about them about five years ago from some traders and ComStar chaps, after a few to many tallboy PPCs at the bar nearest the compound. It is supposed to be a direct copy of an old Star League design, but to tell you the truth. I have not seen one in person, yet. I do know that the ComStar people are worried about them, because it looks like it might match what they are fielding with some of their prime units. Now, from what I have heard, lately. The FedCom are supposed to have a few hundred units in service with their top of the line Mech RCTs, already. If that is true? Then the market for this older style of cannon? That will dry up very quickly, don't you think? How does 95,000 sound per weapon?"

Robert was losing this quick; he could feel it. And if what she said was true? Then the mark up for the hoped-for Cash Cow for this mission was in danger. Then Robert let a smile come to his face. He had an idea. "Even if it is true, Terry. How long will it take for them to get out here, on the other end of occupied space. I might be able to go as low as 115,000 each."

The Duke kept the same smile on her face. They were already at the price point, which she had set as her maximum price for the weapons. She knew that he had a point. But Terry had one more card to play, to see if she could get a better deal. She felt like there was still some meat on the bone of this deal. What was the worst thing that could happen? They would get the weapons at a price she was already okay with spending.

"How much barrel life is left on those things anyway? 100,000 and I will take all of them off of your hands."

Robert knew how old those cannons were. As a matter of fact, it was his opinion. That If someone wanted to shoot one, as some kind of a test before buying? He would have made sure that he was in a bunker very far away, before they pulled the trigger. But he could not say that. It would blow his cover story apart.

"Ugh… okay? I have no idea. As I already said. We found them in the Scout ship's cargo hold. I can live with that number. I will just have to deal with my partners, when I get back home."

Robert held out his hand and Terry took it in her long finger hand and pumped it up and down twice, before letting go of the other hand. The deal was done. Robert and Emma followed Terry to the trunk of her hover sedan, which was in front of the flat bed cargo trucks. When she opened it, she pulled out three thick plastic envelopes.

The first one was the thickest and had handwritten letters on the outside. It said 200,000 in neatly printed numbers. The two thinner ones each had 100,000 written in that same neat handwriting on one side. Robert passed the thicker one to Emma, to count, while he took the two thinner ones. Terry then opened a metal lock box, which was on the armored trunk floor. Inside the metal box? There were gold and silver colored bars stacked one on top of the other. This far away from the major or House center banks. Cash was king. But having a lot of it on hand, that was a different matter. It was not like the local government could get a loan from a bank branch.

These items were called trade bars. Each of the bars had a twelve-digit serial number and stamped with a maker's mark. Each one also was sealed in a clear, thick, and very hard plastic cover. It would help prevent tampering with them, by any unsavory person. This far out from normal civilization? Paper money tended to be used, less than other forms of physical wealth transfer. She counted out the bars of different sizes and colors. With the mild fluctuation on the price of the metal in the bars, she was handing out. The Duke overpaid by around two hundred C-Bills for all five of the cannons over the agreed to price.

When Emma received the last bar. Captain Copeland waved his hand and the old Powerloader's ICE rumbled to life in a small cloud of billowing black smoke. It slowly started its way down the loading ramp. With each step, it was belching more but less dark black clouds of smoke out of a pair of back mounted smokestacks. The power brokers moved out of the way, and let their people work. They had tons of cargo to be moved and in a very limited space, and sometimes stuff just happened. Anyone who had spent a few weeks at a drop port knew this.

Robert and Terry chatted while "Emma" made two trips into the dropship carrying the payments into and putting them in the safe that was built into the very bones of the Dropship. When she came back out the last time, after making sure the safe was locked and recovered by a concealing end table. She had three, half liter bottles of the local caffeinated and carbonated cold drinks.

Emma handed each of the senior people a drink, before she took a sip from hers. While they were taking the first sips. Jess's AKA "Emma" intel skills kicked in. "I hope we did not deplete your cash reserve with this deal, Madam Duke." Emma's training was kicking in hard, and off to data mining she went. The bad part? She did not even realize that she was doing it.

Terry took another sip of the offered drink. She took the time to read the label and let a little smile come to her face, before answering the question. "Oh no. Close, but not quite. The militia operations budget only had enough left in it, to pay for two cannons at that price. I am, personally, picking up one for a project that I'm working on. The rancher you were chatting up last night, Emma? He is picking up the fourth one. I have no idea what he plans on doing with it, and I don't care. The fifth one? He and I are splitting the price and we will put it up for sale on the open market." Terry pointed her opened bottle off into the direction of the HPG compound. "ComStar's Explore Command has been running Mercs out this way for a while now. We think that we can sell it, to one of them, at a nice profit. They are always looking for repair parts of all kinds. It they have the need bad enough, we will have something to sell."

She stopped talking for a second and takes a third sip of the cold drink. Then she started up talking again, now that she was not working. "We should be able to make not a bad profit on the cannon in a few months, but too bad about the computers. That jumped up Adept is such an ass. At least the militia will be happy with the two new cannons. Well, the newish weapons we got for them."

Robert and Emma/Jess shot each other a look, but it was Robert that broke the ice on a new subject. He was not going to beat around the bush. He was going to dive into the meat of the issues. "You don't care too much for what ComStar has been doing out this way over the last few years, do you?"

The look on her face said it all, so he continued, not needing to wait for a verbal confirmation of his question. "So? You wanted one of the computers, and he cut you out of any sales? Why did you need one of them?" Robert was giving the Duke a level look, but he made sure his face was as still as he could make it.

Terry looked at both strangers, and then thought what the hell. "It is for one of the Capital Investment items, that I have been trying to keep going. I have been doing them mostly out of my own pocket. I have been slowly acquiring the tools, and everything you would need, to set up a small auto-cannon ammunition factory for Class 5 weapons. The Class 5 autocannon is very popular in this part of space. It has a nice balance of range, stopping power, weapons weight., and you cannot beat the heat curve." She then gave a soft little shoulder shrug.

"A good computer system would help out, a lot, if it was powerful enough. I have already set up a small factory that makes Short Ranged rockets that fit any of the Holly made launch systems. We can make about a hundred rockets a month, but we can ramp that up to two hundred missiles a week. All we need is a few months warning. That is if someone needs more, than what we have on hand at the time they make a purchase. I prefer to keep a steady production rate, and keep people working, instead of feast or famine. We also have our own line of short ranged rockets. We call them dumb fire systems."

Terry saw the blank look on the off worlder faces. "They are missiles without any guidance packages mounted in the nose, but they can carry heavier warheads. You would be surprised, but we make a good deal of money selling them to different groups. Most of the mercenary units don't like them. But if that is all they can afford? They will buy them, some of the nearby poorer planets buy them for their militia units. We use them for marksmanship training. We are always looking to improve our high-end exports going out of our system. It just takes time, money and some hard to find items. Oh, and a reason for someone to send a jumpship out this way. "

Duke Terry was now looking down at the hard-baked ground at her feet and kept talking. "We have everything we need to get that damn auto cannon shell manufacturing line up and going. That includes the software. It all has been collecting dust for over eight months. Everything is setting in a small building near my home. All we need to get it going is a pretty powerful computer system, to help design the ammunition and then run two of the production machines."

Terry looked up and over to where the ComStar van was setting. She should have been shooting daggers out of her eyes. "I looked at that computer system you had on display, and the Bio's stats where great. One of those would have been great, for what I need. I think if I could get a few more of the computer-controlled production machines. It even could have handled them too, and that would have increased our total production. If I can make say a ton to a ton and a half of ammunition, to start with a month?"

Terry gave a very unladylike snort. "Even that jumped up Adept would have to buy ammunition from us, and I would make him pay in cash! They will go through a lot of ammo with the Rifleman and Clint that they have over there." She had a dreamy look in her eyes at the thought of getting money out of ComStar every time they went to the range. She knew that they would go through at least four tons of rounds, just going to a range one time.

Emma raised one eyebrow as she looked at Robert. This is where it came to a judgment call on a resupply run. This could be a new contact for "The Family", if Robert played it right. Robert did not have to look at "Emma" to know she was looking at him. He was thinking the same thing. This contact had way too many "up sides" to pass up. It had risks, but it also had a lot of rewards, to match those risks. Besides someone down the road might pull the plug on it, or they might agree and help it further along. It had not been the first time that a contact had been developed on a supply run. Most of the time they were only used for that one supply run, but other times. They had been run by one of the Family for some years afterword's.

"Terry, I might have a surprise for you. But you will have to keep it quiet? You will never be able to say, where you got it from. Can you do that for me? This is not a small risk, that I could be taking. So, please tell me the truth."

Terry looked at the Captain and smiled. She thought that he had been coy, with how he had phrased some of his words. "What do you have Robert? Is it an autographed image of Jerome Blake dancing in nothing but a pink tutu?"

Her tone was light, but the spark in her eyes was not coy at all. More like blazing with the gleam of hope. Hope was very hard to come by in this part of space. You could get only fleeting glimpses of it, before it was snatched away again. Having hope could be a great thing, and then it was equally as bad when you lost it.

Emma had been taking a drink from her drink bottle and choked or snorted as she heard what the other woman had just said. It was more like she did both things, at once. She sent a pair of caramel colored liquid rockets out of her nose. Of all the things, that might have been said. That was not even close to being on the list of expected comments to come out of anyone's mouth. Emma was really starting to like this woman. She also knew that this could be bad, if she turned out to be playing a game on them somehow.

Robert had a good laugh at both women, because Terry was looking at the antics of Emma with an odd smile on her face. "No nothing like that, Terry. But one of my old bosses has a copy of that in a safe back home." This drew a look from both Emma and Terry, and this added to his mirth. It had taken them a few seconds for them to realize that he was joking.

When they were ready? He lowered the boom. "Let's just say. That we found more than six of those computers. I was planning on taking one of them home with me, for a project a buddy of mine has wanted to try for some time. I had expected to sell each of those computers, for only about a thousand C-bills. I was thinking that since I did so well here with them, and you could use one. I will just help him buy a lower end model, when we get back home. Now, as a bonus you can use it to screw over a ComStar Adept with and ego problem." The only part of that story that was true, was that he had more computers and he wanted to get even with ComStar. But it did sound very good, and he had pulled it right out of his fourth point of contact.

Terry was confused, was he offering what she thought he might be offering her? She needed to clarify what was going on right now, or it could get ugly. Like a fully loaded passenger dropship landing without engines, ugly. "Robert, all cards on the table. What are you talking about? Please speak clearly and plainly. I don't think we have much room for a misunderstanding on something like this."

Robert gave Emma a short nod and she walked back towards the dropship, without saying another word. "Terry, what I am saying is. I will trade you a fully functional computer system, like what the Demi-Precentor got, but we will trade it to you. You will cover our food bill, any landing fees, which might be due. Then we will call it an even trade. The only catch is, you will never be able to tell anyone were you got it from or what you paid for it. I need you to understand. That I mean never tell anyone. I think that if a certain Adept, found out? He would seek out any way to get even with me, for being lied to. If I have the right read on that young man? He will want to get even with everyone involved in the deal. And I do not like the idea, that someone in ComStar is out to get me and my people. They have the largest jumpship fleet known in the universe, and very deep pockets."

Terry was stunned, so stunned that she was speechless. Nothing else was said, until Emma and another man set a certain type of box down at her feet. Terry thought, _"I can do this!"_

She quickly walked over to her hover sedan. She opened the rear door, and the crewman forced the system deep into the back seat. When Terry closed the door again, she quickly looked around the local area. _"Well, that just barely fit. And thank god for tinted windows, and I had the top up. I will have to lock it up and not let my staff even look at it until the next dropship lands and lifts off again._ "

In only seconds the game changing computer system was out of sight from any on lookers, which might be around. The normally reserved woman hugged both Robert and Emma. While doing this PDA, she fought to keep the tears from coming out of her eyes. What sat in the back of the car, was the end of almost three long and painful years of work. Now it seemed that a very complex project, almost on the level of a pipe dream, would be complete. The SRM factory had been started and finished while the first project had languished. All for some fresh groceries to feed about a hundred people for a few weeks. Food was cheap on this planet, but not high-tech equipment. The three individuals stayed outside in the shade provided by the grounded Dropship, for another hour. They were just making small talk and getting a few more bits of information. It was all about her plans for improving the manufacturing and educational capabilities of her planet.

While they were still talking. A series of large trucks rolled up to the dropships to offer fresh, frozen, dried, and canned food stuffs for sale to restock the dropships and jumpships. In the end, enough food was loaded to feed all of the crews for a full ninety days. Terry had stayed around and was happily making suggestions and even helped with negotiating down the prices. She wanted her new friends to get the best deals and or the best cuts. She, in person, would collect the bills from the venders and Robert's crew would load the ship. Duke Terry had not planned on staying all day at the Space Port, but she did. Later that night. It would go down in her journal as one of the better days, which she has had in a while. Right up to the time that the White Rabbit started to close up her hatches to launch back into space.

 **28 Nov 3046**

 **Ltzehoe system zenith jump point**

The White Rabbit dock to the JumpShip on the number three docking collar of the Styx. There, all the crews from the JumpShip and dropships were waiting to help move the food stuffs. They worked quickly to fill up each of the other three ships food lockers with fresh food. While that was going on? Captain Copeland and Emma/Jess floated towards the bow of the large jumpship where the Bridge was located at.

Lt Vaun was waiting for them on the Bridge, when the pair arrived by floating into the command center. He made eye contact but waited until each had strapped into seats before starting his briefing to the mission commander. "Both jumpships are green across the boards, and able to jump at any time Captain. All dropships are docked and secured, but they would like a few more hours to trans-load the fresh provisions and store them properly before we do anything…. drastic. Communications reports that they were able to pick up and record all of the HPG transmissions from this star system since we have been here."

The XO had his stone face on for the next part. "They were able to decode the four messages "Emma" sent. We will be able to fake those four locations codes, which were used in her messages without any problems. We have two other messages, which we should be able to decode by tonight. There was one message that was sent about ten minutes after Emma sent hers, which stands out. We don't know who it was for, but it was coded four ways from hell. It was so encoded that it stood out. I have told them to wait till the other messages from Emma, were decoded. Then run the rest of them threw the crunching software and just let the computers chew on it, when it has the open cycles."

It was rare that a modern computer used its full computing power all of the time, and on JumpShips. It was rarer that computers were ever taken offline, and this only added to the available idle computer processing power. The decoding software would use those "down times" to work on very complex issues. This software had come off a SLDF Bugeye that had not made it all the way to New Circe.

Jules stopped talking and gave the pair of them an odd look, before continuing. "You and "Emma" have a message from a Duke Terry person. It was transmitted in the clear. She said to come back sometime soon. And she will cook you both a dinner, when you come back."

Jules made sure to make eye contact with both of them, before continuing. He had no idea what was going on, but he was worried that they had broken protocol somehow. "She also said that if you can find any JagerMech or Enforcer parts? She will pay top dollar for them. Sir. That is all I have." Jules was still strapped into the slippers, waiting for some information to explain what had gone on dirt side.

Robert matched the eye contact from his second in command, and he did not back down. "Jules, I think she will be a good contact for any of the Families that might be in the area. She is smart, and she seems to be looking out for her people and their future. She also does not like the way ComStar has tried to take over out here. She also told us about the way they have increased their influence in the Free World's League. She said that they have even had fingers deep into the Combine. One of those robed crazies, is now the Mark in charge of the whole Free Worlds League for God's sake. They also have raised an army called the Com Guard out of thin air, or so it seemed. During a war in 3039 between the Draconis Combine and the new Federated Commonwealth. Someone gave one side hundreds of old Star League combat mechs and tanks. There are a lot of fingers pointing to them, as being the salesmen. And those fingers are not just intelligence people, but also it was showing up in open source reporting. What do you think, Jess? We got all that data from her, or people around her. Oh, and by the way I think we can retire your Emma identity. It might keep ComStar guessing for a few more stops, but I do not think it is worth the effort to keep it going as long as we had planned. We still might need it on a few special occasions."

"Emma" was a cover name and person that had been used on every resupply mission for the last hundred years. It was a mix of Clan and old SLIC infiltration tech. The person running an Emma would have on a hair wig and a suit that added about 35kg to a person's body weight. The wig and special compartments in the suit would "drop" skin, hair and other DNA loaded samples into a given area. It would flood a good-sized room, that would act as cover for anyone that was around them with the loaded DNA. It was a DNA smoke screen. The hair and DNA packets had only come from families that could trace all of their relatives back to the people who were slaves or political prisoners recovered from the Draconis Combine. There was a good-sized store house of this material that was renewed and stored. An Emma suit was always worn when a member of the Clan needed to use a ComStar run HPG.

Jess aka "Emma" for this mission looked at both men and decided that it was her place to say something. "I think she could be put on the list, but I would not waiver the background checks and any required investigations. I agree with the Captain. She could be a big help, as a contact. I about fainted, when she said the FedCom might have a production line up and working making Star League grade Ultra Class weapons. Then when one of her militia wrench turners said they even have a type of Freezer heatsink in production. I about jumped out of my shoes, when I worked out that it's a first-generation double heat sink."

She let that part out, to get a rise out of the second in command of this supply run. She even drops the line with a straight face. She had not told Captain Copeland about her intent of dropping that bomb on the mission XO. It was already written into her reports, but no one at the jump point would have had the time to read them after the dropship was attached to the Styx.

"WHAT!"

Jules made a quick look around the Bridge, and little beads of sweat started to form on his forehead. Thankfully no one looked at him, but he knew that he was now the center of attention of the on-duty bridge crew. It was not good form to yell at your Captain. Plus, you really should not do that on his own bridge.

"Sorry Sir. But did you just say, one of the Houses militaries has recovered Ultra tech auto cannons?" The blood had left Jules face with the news of late Star League weapons technology being used again in the Inner Sphere.

Robert nodded to his second in command, to let him know that he did not take offence at the raised tone he had been subjected to. "We don't know if it's true are not. I have put it on the list of things to check out, when we get deeper into the Houses territory. We have reports of other third generation mech components being put back into production, and the information came from two different point sources."

Robert turned a little in his seat to look at who he was about to address. "Jess, I need you to decide. This way no one can say later, that I was thinking with the wrong head on this one. If we cannot get the same price or better, on the rest of the Armstrong designed cannons? Then I say we should bring them back here and sale them, to these people. We will have to dump all of the computers systems, before we come back this way. Or we will have to carry them home and bring them back, another time. Is this a sound game plan?" Robert stopped talking and both he and Jules were looking at the younger woman. There was a reason that the command effort was split between three different people. This was something that the old Star League had pioneered back before HPGs were even an idea.

Jess was quiet for a while, and then spoke just loud enough for the two commanders to hear her. She knew exactly why she was being asked this question, and it still did not make her feel any better about being put on the spot.

"Sir. I agree about the old cannons. I would also suggest that even if we could have one of the Ultras class cannons left? One that would pass for an Inner Sphere built one. I think Duke Terry would pay a fair price for it, and she would know that she owes us another large favor. If we could get some locally made examples of that type of ammunition for it? She might be able to reproduce it for sale, at a later date. That would upset the local ComStar representatives to no end, I think. I also agree about the computers, but before we sale anymore of them. We need to check out the stats of local machines that are on the open market, before we set a price at our next stop. This would allow us to know what a fair price might be. I know that it was impossible to do it here, but in the long run. It would benefit us. If we are selling them to low, we will draw some attention. And as far as I know, one of our plans put out before our leaving, was that we were coming back this way. I do not see why someone in command cannot bump it to the primary plan. I think it would be worth our time to come back to his star system, at least one more time.

Robert did a little nod of the head. You did not make a lot of sudden movements in zero g. "Then it settled. Comms. Please send a message to the local Traffic Control. The following message to Duke Terry. We hope to come back this way, in the near future. We are both looking forward to dinner. Sign it in my name please."

Robert turned to look at his XO. "I think it's time to leave this system. Navigation. Check with our little friend, make sure they have the next jump coordinates. If they are ready, we jump in three hours. Ladies and Gentlemen. We are twenty-four light years to Dunianshire, let's be about it. We are sticking to Plan Beta 4, for now."

And so, it was on the 28 of Nov 3046. The two ships jumped from the Ltzehoe system, and right into an unnamed planet less star. This put them with in ten light years of the next stop, of the resupply run. With both ships safe and secured from the jump. The post jump checks were started, and the jump sails were let out. Soon they would start the slow process to recharge the jump drives, for their next jump across the stars. They could have taken a straight shot to the next system. This short jump was meant to buy time.

It was not possible for the contact to have been able to reply to the message, which was sent from the ComStar controlled HPG by "Emma". So, a time was given for them to expect a second contact. It would not stay a secret long, about where they had jumped to, but the longer it took the better. Robert would not know if his contact was there. At least not until he jumped into the next system, in about a week or so. Dealing with the Lost Families was not the easiest, and they were known to move, die, or otherwise just fall off the map.

It was going to be a very stressful week for the command crew. They were not used to waiting so long between jumps, which the "normal" jump drives required. Robert used the time to work out his next move, if this contact was not there. He even started on the finishing touches on the contact plans if even the second of his planned contacts was missing. He remembers his father telling him once while he was working on those plans. It was that his father had not been able to make contact with a member of the "Family" until they were down to the fifth line on a mission.

Notes:

 **Why did I choose Ltehoe?** When I started writing this about 2012. I wanted something that was off the map. The first maps I found made it look like this system was just under 60ly from a major planet and not under anyone's control. It was only later, 2018 (?), that I found out that it was a lot shorter distance to a major system. I was lazy and I did not want to change the planet's name. So, I just rewrote a little bit.

 **Buying/Selling mech weapons in the Periphery.** I was reviewing Mercenary 3055. It had all of those rules about buying mech, dropships and jumpships. I just wanted to write about what it might be like to go shopping and selling out there on the edge.

 **Emma**. How do you keep ComStar/ROM not knowing who you are? Crime drama is not my thing and it just kind of sounded cool. I decided I would take it out for a drive for a few chapters.


	11. Chapter 11 5 Dec 3046

**Chapter 11**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up By

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **5 Dec 3046**

 **The Dunianshire system.**

The first, of the two convoying jumpships, to arrive in this system was the Styx. She was followed a little less than five minutes later, by the Scout class jumpship now called Toy Box. A jump point was a large area of space, but accidents were known to happen. They were a very commonly used trope in written and visual media. You did not want to have any type of space capable ship to close together. If a jumpship tried to jump into the space, that was already occupied by another ship or ships of any type. If that did happen? Then both ships would come out of the event destroyed, most of the time in a very graphic way. It had happened in the past often enough and in all cases, it was bad? The best-case scenario was that they would disappear. Nothing was ever found of the two ships, which had their jump cores interact in such a way. The scenarios went downhill from there.

The Duniashire system was a center of large-scale manufacturing, and it had been that way even before the Star League fell. Now it was not as productive as it had been in the past, but it still was a major industrial area. The Zenith Jump point, even still to this day, had a fully operational recharging station. It was both a major draw and a major user of the local monetary resources to keep it in operation. Even with the rates it charged to help generate income for ships not trading here, it was always busy with interstellar traffic. It was nowhere near as busy as it had been in its heyday. It even was not as busy as it had been during the start of the First Secession War. That had been the last time, that there had been four stations of this type in operation around this single star. However, it was busier than it had been in the last fifty years. This information was not missed by the locals and non-locals. It was only the lack of jumpships in this part of space, which had capped the amount of traffic at the current numbers.

That massive station was not the only object that occupied this part of the local star system. A Merchant class jumpship, and Invader Class jumpship, and a massive Star Lord Class jumpship also were in this system doing business today. This was not counting the Tramp and Scout that had just arrived. There were also over a dozen dropships of various designs flying to or from the jump point, space station and the planet. It should have easily impressed any ship's crew and passengers traveling in this part of human occupied space. It did not work so much on this two-ship convoy. They had grown up in a busier star system.

This was the first major port the resupply mission had stopped at on this run, but it was not going to be the last. That is unless things went very badly. Captain Copeland had issued each person in the small fleet two hundred C-Bills, in cash. They could spend it anyway that they saw fit. That is if they followed the rules set down by the Chain of Command before they left their homes. A lot of people in the little convoy were looking forward to starting to fill their personal cargo allotment, with high value items to take back home. Many of the crewmembers were filled with stories from past missions, were someone had been able to buy a home or other major item with the proceeds from that cargo allotment.

"Sir. We are jump complete on both ships, and the jumps sails are in phase two of their deploying cycle. I am receiving an automated message coming in, which is saying. That we will submit to a customs inspection as soon as the next customs ship is available. It was not on a tight beam and it is repeating."

"Communications. Please contact Traffic Control on the Olympus Recharge Station and tell them that the Scout ship is with us. Also let them know, that we would like permission to launch two dropships to go planet side. We also would like to know, if it's okay that we launch our escorting dropship with two fighters. They are to provide a CAP on both of our Jumpships. Let them know that our CAP will stay in close orbit of our jumpships only. That should cut through the auto replay mess and get us a person on the other end of the radio." Smiled the Captain to his crew, and true to his statement.

A real person was trying to contact them, in less than five minutes, after their request had left the bridge of the modified Tramp class ship. Captain Copland knew some of the key words to gets "stuff" moving in most heavily populated star systems. He had learned a lot on the other missions, but sometimes some of the words had just popped into his head. They did not pull his name out of a hat to make his first resupply run all of those decades ago.

A very strong and loud voice carried over the active speaker system, which was auto fed from the radio receiver. "Merchant Vessel Styx. This is Traffic Control. You are not to launch a bloody thing, till one of our Customs ships has checked you for weapons! Confirm."

Robert picked up the small handheld device mounted on the side of his fix mounted chair and pushed the side button with a slight use of force. Robert could not help but feel a smile form on his face and he quickly decided to use a slow and friendly tone with just a little fun mixed in. "Traffic Control, this is Styx Actual. We all have weapons. You know that this is the edge of settled space, right?" Captain Copeland had been down this road before, and he was not going to let a local try to pull one over on him.

It took a few minutes for the speed of light radio waves to cross the distance to the massive space station. When it returned from that massive station, a new voice came over the speaker. "Styx Actual this is Traffic Control Actual. We do not have you on record, as having stopped here before. These are the rules we will enforce. When the Custom ships dock? You will give them a list of major weapons systems and classes of all ships that are under your command in this system. You will also be asked to pay a port fee for every day you are in system. The first seven days are due before the Customs ship leaves your flagship. This does not count docking or charging fees from this station or any landing fees on planet. I am now transmitting a copy of all rules, laws, fees and fines. Please let me know when you have them. If you decide that this is not the place for you, but before the custom ship docks with your ship? Please let us know. You can finish deploying your sails, charge, and leave. No harm no foul. You will not launch a dropship, small craft, fighter, buss or we will have issues. Maybe you will come back again when you are ready to trade in the deep end of the pool."

Robert could not help but smile. The woman on the other end was feisty, and that was a good type of person to have in that type of job. "Traffic Control Actual. Thank you for your time. We will be waiting for the Customs ship whenever it is ready to come over." The communication station ended the active connection with a flip of a switch. After being given the nod by the mission and ship's commander. There were more than a few snickers floating through the air about the exchange. It was with a few surprised looks that the speaker came to life again.

"Styx Actual, we will have them out to you as soon as we can. Thank you for your time and being a professional. It is a rare thing to see, this far from Terra. May you have a profitable and safe stay in our little solar system." The connection was static filled for a few seconds before it was ended at the source. Robert had just cut threw a lot of the red tape and waiting by hours, in his book.

Just as the jump sails were starting to feed power back into the massive interstellar drives and the batteries that made them work for a ship this size. Robert's day dreaming was interrupted. "Captain. We have a contact burning toward us. It just flipped but it has not started slowing down yet. I am reading her as a very old S7 Bus type craft. If she does not fire her engine in one minute, she will crash into us."

The report had ended in mid-sentence as more information came in. After a few seconds of quiet it started back up. "Sir, I'm reading a spike in heat coming from the Bus. She has fired up her main engines. She has started to slow down. Boy! It's dirty. Their output has lots of unburned fuel mixed in their thrust, maybe she is due for an engine rebuilding soon. Her deceleration has her at 0/0 about a hundred meters off our bow.

Robert looked over at the XO and gave some directions. "Open Small Craft Bay Door 2 and turn on the docking beacon for them. Jules, I think we should meet them at the small craft bay." Jules was still hooked into the non-floating slippers, but he turned at the hips so that he could see his boss.

"Sir. I think you're right. Let's go see how much they will be trying to extort from us, on top of the published fees." Both men floated out of the bridge and pulled themselves down the metal hallway toward the expected landing area of the Customs inspectors. Both men wanted to get to that location before the inspectors arrived, it was a matter of pride more than anything.

Robert watched threw a thick glass window as something came into view. It was a battered transport, which looked more like a brick to make a building, instead of a mid-ranged inter solar system transport. A craft that size could hold around ten people, not counting the crew that the little ship needed to function properly. It might have looked like a wreck, but the pilot knew their stuff. It smoothly entered the bay and then sat down on the marked area of the deck plating. It was as smooth of a landing as anyone in the SLDF in Exile could have done. That was very high praise and he would not have given it verbally or mentally to just anyone.

Once the indicator said that it was safe on both sides of the hatch, it went a bright green from its blood red. A young female, with an Ensign rank badge on her uniform, was followed by an older man with a well-worn Star Corporal's rank badge on his space suit exited the visiting S7 Bus. The two jumpship's officers opened the hatch, which would lead to the rest of the ship in one smooth motion. Robert and Jules entered the bay to greet the new arrivals in the small craft bay.

 _"Well they look bored, don't they?"_ Thought Robert. "Welcome aboard the Styx. How may we help you?" He made sure to have his smiling face on when he spoke to the two new arrivals.

The very bored young female officer was the person in front of the pair of new arrivals. She spoke first of the two-person group. She pulled out a thin handheld glass topped computer and tapped the screen with a plastic stick. "Sir, please state your name for the record. We also need to know the class of each of your ships and the composition of your escorts." She had given this exact same speech a dozen times today, alone. And today was the same as the last 187 and she had another 170 days to go, before she was eligible for a new assignment.

Robert kept a straight face and gave his and Jules names along with each of their job positions. Then Jules rattled off the information, and the enlisted person wrote down all the information along with the young woman. Sometime during Jules's speaking the female officer started looking down at a piece of blue card stock attached to her right suit arm. When Jules got to aero fighters carried by the Hobgoblin, he was looking closely at their faces. Both looked up when the last class of craft he stated was an Ironsides. Jules and Robert just kept a poker face and made like it was just another day in the deep black.

"Now, that is an odd mix of fighter craft. Are you a mercenary unit, which decided to become traders? Asked the older man. He had been around this solar system so much at high speed. That it was starting to affect how he counted his age. When he saw that something was off? He was not shy about bringing it up. It was his job to make sure the young officer lived long enough to be an older officer. And sometimes that meant you had to ask odd questions.

"No, they are just what we have been able to acquire along the way. I would like to reduce it to one design for all six bays, but we have not been able to do that so far. It would make it easier on our parts supply situation, not counting training and ammunition. We hope that we might change our luck, here. We just need to find the right buyers and sellers." Captain Copeland replied, in his best command voice. It was not all a lie, just mostly one.

The young female officer turned and looked down at the enlisted man, before turning back to the two other officers. "I will need to see the cargo bays of all the ships and physically see each fighter, now. If you would like to change your statement? This is the last chance you will get, and there will not be any issues about the miss remembering what you're packing."

Robert just grabbed a hold of a handle near the open hatch and with the other hand pointed down the corridor to show her the way she should go. She went through each of the ships and stopped on each cargo deck. The only issue that came up was when she entered the main hold of the White Rabbit and saw the battlemech. It took some explaining, to get through to her that it was not a fully functioning mech. He had to say, over and over again, that it was only being used as a demonstrator vehicle for sales. The enlisted man climbed over it and after a few minutes agreed with Robert's statement about the mech. The entire inspection was complete in less than an hour. Most of that time was spent just moving from cargo hold to cargo holds that were spread-out between the dropships. When they returned to the small craft bay, which held her ride home. The young officer was about halfway through the small craft bay, before turning around.

"This is the first time I have been in this class of vessel." She gave a shoulder shrug and went on with her shtick. "I thought it would be bigger. Here is your bill for entering Duniashire space. You will be charged a daily rate after the first seven days. She passed over a card to Captain Copeland and waited for the payment for the number written on it.

 _"Well, that explains why you did not ask to see the main cargo bays that this ship should have." R_ obert took the note and read the numbers then passed it to his second in command.

Every other class of jumpship in the Inner Sphere only has enough cargo space for small spare parts, food for the crew, and not much else. Jules took the offered paper and read the amount. It was exactly the same amount that had been posted in the information pages, which had been sent to them earlier. That was surprising, to both of the SLDF in Exile officers. Captain Copeland reached into an inner pocket of his ships coveralls and counted out the seven hundred C-bills. That was all that was required, to settle the bill the young officer had just passed him.

The still bored officer looked down at the half inch thick glass topped computer. She had been taking notes on it and now sees that she had missed something. She counted the money and handed Robert back a thin paper receipt with a stamp on it. She now looked a little embarrassed by her slight mess up.

"Sir, I'm sorry. I forgot to note. What is your business here in this system?" The now slightly embarrass junior officer asked. She kept her pen ready to write down whatever the merchant captain was going to say. If they were not going to go in system, she had just shortchanged her government by about double the amount of money in her pockets.

"We are on a trade mission. We are to collect things that our home system cannot produce but needs. Or we are to collect things we might be able to sell at a profit back home." That was the cover story, which had to be given every time when asked that exact same question. It was the same one that had been used on the last half dozen missions like this one sent to the Inner Sphere.

Both visitors seemed happy with that statement and re-boarded their craft to continue with their jobs on other nearby interstellar ships. The two customs inspectors went to another ship, all the time knowing. That what the pair was doing was just a check the box kind of thing and being the tax collectors for the leaders on the planet closer to the star. The only reason they were out here, was to make sure that someone did not sneak in an attack force of some kind. They thought that the little money that was collected was just enough to cover the fuel cost of the ship they used and nothing more. All the time they knew they were just a speed bump, if things went wrong. That was good training for a junior officer and an old crusty NCO that had made someone with a lot of rank mad at him in the past.

Both officers of the Styx floated back on the bridge of the jumpship, and re-strapped into their chairs. Both could now breathe a little easier, now that the inspectors were done and the fee's paid. It was one little step in the overall mission, but it was one they also had to get used to having to deal with. It was times like this, which they felt like they were at the most risk of being discovered.

"Well that could have gone a lot worse, than it did. I was expecting to get hit up for a payoff of some kind. I cannot remember the last time, we had an "inspection". That we did not have to cough up extra money in the triple digits." Captain Copeland shook his head and his XO was nodding his head in agreement. Robert had a total of twelve hundred C-Bills in his pocket to deal with any added "fees" that might have come up.

"Well let's see if any of 'Emma's" messages made it threw to anyone. Communication. Please contact that old, decrepit Olympus and see if we have any messages waiting for the jumpship M/V Styx." Robert had to shake his head and smile wryly. He had been waiting a long time to give orders like that on a supply run.

This was something new for him, and it would have been done by the Flagship on a given leg of a collection mission. This time it was just the Tramp Class ship Styx. The last time he had been on this run, he had been in charge of this ship, and second in command of a small part of a supply run. Still it was three or four jumpships working together. Now, he was alone. He did not count the small scout class ship, which was just a large bit of cargo he had to move.

"Sir?" When the communication operator turned to ask the Captain why there would be a message waiting on them in this system. It was a star system that this ship or its crew had never been in before, as far as they knew? Before another word came out of his mouth. He looked at the Captain and changed his mind. He did not want to ask again, by the look on the Captain's face. Captain Copeland had the "I am the right hand of God" look on his face. This shift of jumpship's bridge crew had not been on duty when the briefing had been given to the mission commander about Emma's messages.

"Sir! I am contacting the recharging station now." He flipped a few switches and waited for the reply to come from the old station. It came a few long minutes later. A very shocked radio operator turned in his fix mounted chair to look at the commander. He had some aw in his voice.

"Sir we have one text message waiting. They sent a digital copy, now. Would you like a copy on a Noteputor?" He was assuming that the message in question was either a very personal one, or it was a very highly classified message. Either way? It was not for just anyone to know the contents of. That was the safe bet

Robert was not smiling. Even just an almost questioning of an order on his ship was not handled lightly, so he kept a stern look on his face while he had eye contact. "No, just read it aloud please." The ships senior officer smiled to himself. Sometimes you must let your reputation ride.

The radio operator silently turned around to face his station and started to read the message, after a few quick button pushes to bring it up to his screen. "Sir! Its only three short lines, in the message. First line. Please meet at Le Chiffre, at main entrance of the Drop Port. Second line. Call and it has a contact number, twenty-four hours prior to meeting. Last line says. We are looking forward to working together as your Intermediary for local sales. The message ends?" There was a slight aw tone as the com tech finished reading the message.

Robert still had a poker face on, when he looked over at Jules. "Looks like someone from the Families still lives on the Planet. I think we need to get clearance and launch the White Rabbit and the Lisbon Maru, both. I think it will be me and Jess going with them, again. Jules, I want you to keep an eye on things out here. I don't think we will have any trouble. But you know if it goes sideways. Get out of here and leave us. If things go wrong? Alt R, and just like that this is the last system." Alt R was, run home as fast as your ships can take you plan.

Jules did not say a word. He just nodded his head, that he accepts the order. It did not matter if he agreed with the orders or not. They were his orders, and they were already loaded into the ship's computers as proof of them. Jules knew that this was the burden of command, and the overall mission was the most important.

Two hours later, two Dropships separated from the jumpship Styx, and started a long 1g burn towards the target planet. The crew was happy to be able to enjoy the sense of gravity without having to use the larger jumpships rotating gravity deck for the pleasure. It should have only taken seven days to reach the drop port from the jump point. That would have been in a perfect world. That did not happen.

Both of the dropships had to spend an extra day in orbit, till two landing spots that were close together, were clear for their use. Robert used this time to contact the Café Le Chiffre in "his" company name for reservations. He then left his own message at the number that was given in the first lines of the message that had been waiting for them. He left his own message with the date, time, and the name that the reservations were under. This meeting would be different, because none of the parties would know what the other one looked like. That is, until the meeting started, it was like a blind date from hell. Robert was thinking of all the things that could go wrong with the meeting while they were waiting in orbit. He was a jumpship's captain, not a spy out of some cheap Tri D drama.

 **13 Dec 3046**

 **The Dunianshire system**

Robert and Jess, the intelligence specialist on this mission, were able to call for a hover taxi to pick them up at the base of the White Rabbit after they had landed. As they had been told, the Café Le Chiffre was right outside of the main entrance to the Drop Port. The Café was large, at least two floors of booths and tables. The two people from the Star League masquerading as traders were escorted to a booth on the second floor. It also was against one of the large side windows. It was the perfect place to have a quiet meeting that few would notice in passing. The table was set for three people, not the six that it was designed to hold. The two visitors ordered from the "French" menu and waited for their hoped-for contact. It gave them both some time to think about what they were about to do. This is generally thought of as not a good thing, when you're under stress.

The meeting time had been set for 6pm local and at 6:05pm a short woman of around twenty or maybe thirty local years old walked up to the table. It was not just by her dress that you knew that she was not part of the staff. She took a seat behind the only open plate left on the table. She was way too young to have seen the Exile's hidden home planet. Jess in her "Emma" suit and Robert looked at her and went on high alert as soon as she took her seat.

The woman looked at each of the two navy officers in standard spacer gear, in the face before saying one word. "Revenge?" The tone was a question not a statement of fact.

Robert looked at her. That was the correct challenge code word. Now, it was time for him to give the counter password. "Ajax". He should have used the word in a sentence to hide it, but something told him that would have been the wrong move with this woman. When he said the word, it was not a question. It was a statement of a fact of life.

The pair would know if this person was safe to talk to, if they lived for the next five minutes. As soon as he said the word. He decided to wait a few seconds before he added something that just popped into his head. It also was going to be a breach of field craft, but he did it anyway.

"You look like Lisa Noone."

The young woman blinked quickly three or four times. "I do not know a Lisa, but Beth Noone was my mother."

The woman seemed to relax a little, before she continued. She kind of had a lost look in her eyes. "I think I remember you from the last trip, but I'm not sure. I was only like ten when one of you stopped by our apartment. When Mon died. She had left me a hard copy folder to read. I could not believe we were a deep cover family supporting a remnant of the Old Star League. It was like something out of a daytime Tri-D drama. I don't think it truly set in, even after I had time to read the whole packet."

She gave a shrug and kept talking after a bit of a mental flash back. "I really didn't think that it was true. That is until I followed her directions to the underground hidden warehouse. That was about three months after she had died. It was about half full of stuff, and notes about bank accounts full of monies that I did not know we had. The extra money was to try to finish filling the shopping list, which had been left for her to do. I'm kind of new to this, and mom did not exactly train me up before she passed on." She knew that she was rambling and probably was talking too much. It was not like she had been trained to be a spy. Her mother had died all of the sudden, and she felt that she had only been partially trained for something like this.

Robert felt like he had been hit in the stomach. Beth was a close friend from his childhood, and she should have lived for another dozen years. At least, if she had access to some decent health care. It was with a slightly breaking voice he had to ask.

"How did Beth die?"

They had plenty of time to talk shop, now that they were back in system. It was better to get the personal stuff out of the way, to see if it was covering any lingering or hidden problems. This would also have the benefit of letting the young woman know that what happened to the Families, being so far from their home, was important to him. It would also show that they, the leadership, still cared for them so far from there people and the other families. More than one of the "Families" had faded away, because of a death or any of a long list of other reasons.

"She picked up some bug, which was going around the planet like a firestorm. She just never was able to shake it after it hit her. The doctors could not figure out how she lived as long, as she had. She was one tough woman. So, Captain Copeland, is it? What do we do now?"

 _"Right to business. Just like her grandmother,"_ thought Robert. "First, does your family still have contacts that would be able to sell large aerospace items on so short of a notice? Yes or no?"

"Captain! I and I'm a company of one person now, is one of the most popular and primary go-betweens for the resale of dropships and small craft in this system. The message I was sent said you have a Scout Class Jumpship to sale, correct?"

She was looking dead at Robert, and not looking at "Emma". She knew who was in charge and focused on that target. She felt more than a little offended that he would ask her those two questions. Her mother had worked very hard, every day of her short life to be the best at what she did.

"Yes, Miss. Noone. That is correct. We also have a list of things we are looking at selling, but not all should be dumped here. At least that was what I was thinking." Jess passed over a hard copy of the list of items they wanted to sale on this resupply run, without being asked to do so by the Captain. It had the desired effect of pulling the eyes of the other woman to face her across the dining table.

Miss Noone took the offered information and looked over the list before looking up again. "I do not know how mother would have handled this. I must pay taxes to the local government on any dealings, which I sign on to do. I will have to charge you a fee to cover those costs, which the locals are going to want covered. My company's books are checked often enough by the government, that I don't want to risk them asking too many questions about you." She was shifting looks between the two strangers equally.

"You are Beth's daughter. I know that we would pay her the standard fee. They were the same ones that she charged everyone else, for those same reasons. What is your fee rate and schedule?" Robert could not help but smile at the younger woman.

"I charge a flat ten percent fee on all big-ticket items that I help sell. But I will cap the total to fifty million C-Bills in total fees. You will have to pay for any taxes the locals might put on the sales you are party to." She looked around the room and then pitched her voice a little, but in the wrong way. She did not know that whispering carried further than you thought.

"I know mom would spend about a third of her profits on the stuff she put in storage for you all. I will sell that stuff to you at cost, sense the government does not know about it. If we are going to be working together for some length of time? How about you all just call me Lora if you please."

She stopped talking and went into thinking mode. She went to drumming her fingers on the tabletop. "I will need to arrange to have the jumpship inspected, before putting it up for sale. We do not have to do that, but it will speed up the sale. If it passes an inspection? I would like to post the results of the inspection, so everyone can see it when they want to. Is that going to be a problem?" She looked back and forth between the two again.

"I agree to both the inspection and the fees, Lora. You're in charge of the sales. So, we will trust you on what needs to be done."

Just as they paused in talking business, food for all three people was brought out. This was an interesting bit of information, since Lora had not been there to order anything. _"She must use this place for meetings often. That will be nice to help our cover."_ This was a silent thought that Robert had, as they started digging into the fresh hot food in front of them.

All three agreed that you should never let good food go to waste. You can always talk, but food was only ever done right once. Besides it seemed very good. The quiet time lasted only until the food was mostly gone. Then the meeting resumed, and at a little friendlier manner than it had first started. They still would take a small bite of the remaining food or take a sip of a drink, while they worked.

All during the meeting, they talked about the best ways to move the equipment they brought all the way from home. As it turns out, she knows a person at Majesty Metals and Manufacturing or as it was known to the rest of the Inner Sphere MMM. One that would be able to schedule a meeting to talk about the cannons. She also sent a message to the Recharge station at the jump point. An inspection crew would leave the next day, to do the official inspection of the Scout to be put up for sale.

About halfway through the meeting. Lora passed Robert a locally made communication device, so that they could pass a message up to the Styx. He needed to let them know that they would be having visitors, and they were going to the Scout the next day. They also used it to schedule a meeting with a representative from MMM the next day. After dinner Robert set up an official meeting again with Lora to join them at the MMM office. Using a local made device was "normal" and added to their cover story. That was the need of this night's meeting.

So, the next day, both of the officers took another short hall taxi off the local Drop Port's grounds. The MMM office was in a non-descript ten story heavy duty concrete building near the heart of the city. They reported to the administrative assistant at the front desk, and then quietly waited there turn to be called deeper into the building. Lora walked in a few minutes later and joined the other two out system visitors in waiting.

Lora was playing with a book that was almost three inches thick, and Jess noticed that the other woman was very distracted. Jess was very well trained in some of the military disciplines, but she had natural talent about watching people. She also lived by the two rules of her profession. (1) "It's not paranoia if they really _are_ out to get you." And (2) "We put people in lunatic asylums, if they go around saying there aren't people hunting them down trying to kill them".

Lora what do you have there?"

Lora's head almost popped off her neck when she looked up from the book. "Its something that my mother and I think my grandmother worked on." Lora tapped the padded top of the book a few times. "I remembered, late last night, that my mother was working on it all the time." With a soft sigh she handed it over to Jess. "I thought that it might be useful."

Jess shot a look over to Captain Copeland, but he was head down into his own book. Jess reached over and took the book. She opened it to the first page and realized that it was a scrap book. It had a mix of digital pages and old fashion paper. Mostly it was made up of paper pages and images that were attached to the bounded pages of the book.

While they were waiting? Jess kept going through the scrap book, it was not like she had anything else to do. Then she flipped to a set of pages that were made up of a paper magazine, that catered to the mech jock or want to be Mech pilot. She was about halfway through the new section, when she stopped breathing. She passed the scrapbook over to Robert, who first raised an eyebrow then looked down at the paper page she was pointing to.

The story was an in-depth review of a battle a mercenary unit had been involved with back in 3028. The title of the story was Massacre on the planet Misery. Robert did not have to read the story to know what had caused Jess to pass him the scrap book. In the center of the story, was a full color plate image of three mechs. The trio were standing over a massive waste land of destroyed machines. The standing machines were a Shogun, Annihilator, and an Imp. These were all mechs that were known to be in operation with the Clans, when the Wolverines had left. As far as the Star League in Exile knew? They were not known to be used by any of the Inner Sphere's major or minor power players. Robert took the book and started reading the pages from the very beginning.

The 5th floor waiting room was nice, even plush as those things went. But it did not take long before the waiting was starting to ware on all three of them. Lora was about to get up and start to ask some questions, when one of the other doors off of the waiting room opened up into what Lora knew was the low-level VIP waiting room.

A man dressed in an expensive suit, a fresh haircut, a false smile, and an outstretched hand entered the waiting room. He was talking as soon as he passed the door threshold coming into the waiting room.

"Captain Copeland, of Copeland Salvage I take it? I'm sorry for the delay. I was just told that you were here. I am going to have to get after the receptionist. You should not have been left here so long." The last part was a blatant lie. Everyone in the room knew it, as soon as the words touched the air in the carpeted room.

"That is us, Copeland Supply Salvage and Resale. I was about to see if someone else was interested in what I have for sale." Robert knew the game, and he wanted Mr. Slick to know that he was on thin ice. Robert was not some back-planet rock with lips. The sooner Mr. Slick knew that. The better off everyone would be.

The smile did not leave the face of Mr. Slick, but the area around the eyes gave it away that he got the warning shot. "Why don't you and your friends come into my office? We can be more comfortable and discuss if we can do business, or not."

Mr. Slick stepped to one side and gestured into the room he had just exited. He seemed relieved that all three rose and walked into his office. He knew that his multibillion C-bill a year company had the upper hand when dealing with 99.999 percent of the population of the planet and those who visited it. There was only one person in this group that had a "name". He let the group take whatever seat they wanted in the very nice office.

"I am truly sorry about the wait, but we needed to check out your story before we could have a meeting. That alone took some time, on such short notice. We get a Lost Tech Prospector in the office about every month. They are always trying to sell "something" to my company. Not all of them have Miss Noone working for them, but we still have to check them out."

Mr. Slick looked down and checked his notes on his office computer. It was another delaying tactic, but not a rude one. He had been letting them sit in the waiting room as a way to show them that they were not in a powerful position. As he was looking down, he started to talk again. "You found and repaired a Scout Class jumpship. From the report that was filed. It passed inspections for resale, with flying colors. That was a good move by the way, whoever's idea that was. Miss Noone said that you might have something that MMM would like to look at, before you opened this "special" item for offers to anyone else."

Robert now had the stage, and he knew how to do this dance. Lora's job was to set this up, and now it was up to him to do his job. "Yes. You see the Scout had the one dropship on her, when we found her. Before you ask. We are not looking to sell it, but it did have a crazy miss match of fighters still in the bays. We can move those. If the price is right? As for what we wanted to show? That is what we found on the one mech in all of the cargo bays. It is an old 2nd SW machine, but its arm mounted cannon is a late Star League area KWI design cannon. That cannon was not the only one we found. If you are not interested in them? We will put them up for sale, on the open market. We thought that if MMM bought them up? Then you could help us pick up some of the things that might be harder to find for the normal shopper on this planet."

Mr. Slick was stunned, and he did not say anything for a long second. The KWI or Ultra Class Cannon had been a dream of weapon manufactures for a hundred years. Like most people in the weapons business. He knew that they had been put back in production in 3045, somewhere in the Federated Suns. If MMM could get a few working copies? It would give them a leg up on getting a model in production on this side of the Inner Sphere. They could corner the market on that class of weapon on about half of the whole Inner Sphere. That is if they could get a few copies and then reverse engineer them.

"We have heard this before, Captain Copeland. How do we, and by we? I mean MMM know this is true, or not. I am afraid today that you are not the first person to walk into my office saying that they have a working KWI or some other bit of old Star League technology." Mr. Slick's hands were slowly pushing keys on a flush mounted keyboard as they had talked. He was buying time again. He could not afford to be wrong about something like this. These people, after all, had put up a whole jumpship for sale that they had recovered.

Robert knew Mr. Slick was playing for time, and again he was okay with it. However, time was something that Robert was not going to give him, this time. "I have fifty cannons for sale, today. If you have the range open in one hour? Then I can have our demonstrator mech there, and we can show you. I am tired of playing games. After we prove what we have. Then you can inspect the fifty we have for sale. You can pick out however many you all want today. The rest I will put up for sale to anyone else on the planet. They will go to the highest bidder. The price is 300,000 each in C-bills, for MMMM. My partners and I think that this is a fair price. The ball is in your court, as they say."

"Now Captain Copeland! It's…. you must be joking."

He gave the group across the desk from him a soft chuckle. "If what you say is true? Then I think 150,000 is the price we would be willing to pay, for something like that."

Mr. Slick was trying to hide his sweating hands. This could make his career, if he could close this deal. He could have taken the first offer and be done with the whole thing. But that was not in his nature, to do something like that. He would never go for the first offer on anything that was being sold to him, it did not matter what was at stake.

Robert stood up and Jess was right beside him, delayed by maybe a second and a half. "Lora? I thought you had contacts that wanted to do business." He had pitched his voice, so it sounded like it had some anger in it. It was all a game, and he knew that Lora would automatically know how to play along.

Lora rose more slowly, and she was giving Mr. Slick that "you're in so much trouble" look with full power. "I'm sorry Robert. I will have the press release sent out today. We can have an open sale in forty-eight hours. I will need that long to get the permits for the sale, and a place on the public range. That way you can demonstrate the weapon to the crowds, that I'm sure will want to be there. We should have no problem moving them in a day. Well maybe two days, but that will be tops."

 _"Oh crap! I blew it, and they are about to bolt!,"_ thought Mr. Slick. "Now, now Captain. Let's not be hasty. Let's wait on the decision of the final price for your products. I will call the range and we can meet there; Lora knows where it is. I will even have one of our mech transports dispatched to pick up your mech and take it to the range. I assume that it is still on, one of your dropships"

Mr. Slick was punching buttons on his computer like a madman or a three-year-old after drinking a six pack of energy drinks. And he was not trying to hide it anymore. He was trying to save this deal and maybe his job. "I have the saved VIP range slot for you, but it will not be open till 1300. Is that acceptable?"

Mr. Slick looked up and was glad to see that they had not left the room yet. "Lora knows how to get to the range, but I can have a company car pick you up with the Mech hauler."

Robert was trying hard not to smile. He had just reeled him in, like a trout in summer. He gave a nod to Lora. She would be the one to deal with these people, after they had left the system. So, he could not poison the well too badly.

"We can do that. The mech will be at the dropship White Rabbit. You can have the mech hauler pick it up there, but have a nice car pick us up at the dropship Maru. This is going to be charged to your company. I am not paying for a bloody thing. After the demo? The mech will be brought back to the dropship, and then you can have a crew look at the weapons. They will be on display outside of the Maru when we are done. We will be expecting payment on the pickup of any weapons. Payment can be a bank Draft or in cash. It's up to you and your procurement department." Robert turned and started to leave.

Lora waited until both of her clients had almost made it to the door, and then turned to face the MMM rep. "Have a good day, and I hope I do not see you on the range. Live weapons might not like you."

Lora turned on her expensive high heels and followed the two space officers out of the office and waiting room without stopping. She would be passing along to some friends what had happened today, and then just let rumors fly on how close this jerk had come to losing a deal of a lifetime.

Jess was fuming when they made it to the elevator. She did not say anything while they waited but after boarding the metal walled room, and the elevator had started going down to the main lobby that changed. She was about to say something, but Robert made a chopping motion across his throat to stop her. He did not want her saying a word in a building, which was probably bugged four ways from Sunday. They did not even talk in the taxi, which just happened to be waiting for them when they exited the building. Lora told the taxi driver to take them and let them off at the Drop port pad, which had the White Rabbit sitting on it. She was also quiet on the ride to the dropship.

Robert waited with the two women outside the dropship, but he had not said a word, until the hover car taxi was well on its way toward the exit of the drop port. Then with a sloppy grin on his face he turned to one of the women.

"I am impressed Lora. That was some great work back there." Before he could say more a banshee drowned him out.

"GREAT WORK?!" that Fraking person was a jerk and insulting." Jess was fuming mad and so red she looked like she could launch an Overlord into orbit. Robert thought he could see fusion fire coming out of her ears.

"Jess, two things. First watch your choice of words. We are on mission."

He was giving her the look that she had breached protocol. He did not say another word until Jess calmed down and nodded back that she was back under control. "Second point, on this planet? We are the Barbarians from the edge of civilized space. We are the sheep to be sheared and not the other way around."

Robert now relented on Jess and turned to face the local woman. "And Lora that bit about the press release for open sale? That was a perfect bit of adlibbing."

"Thank you, Robert. I do think he will have to clean out the pants of that expensive suit with a large spatula about now. I had to work with him once before, and he did much the same thing then. This time? It will get back to the top-level management, if I have anything to say about it. I want them to know that he almost cost them those high-tech cannons. You were not kidding about those Ultra cannons, were you?" The last part, her voice had some stress in it. She had been taking a lot of information on faith, and her whole business required that she be trusted by both parties. When Robert left, she would still be here.

"Lora, no I was not. Now, will all of them work? That, I will not say. I will tell you that before we go to the range. I will make sure that they unload the oldest and most worn out weapons, to put on display first. I had planned to sell them only the best ones. That plan is off the table, now."

Robert looked over at Jess before continuing. "I did not lie to that jerk. I just did not give him the right number, which we have on hand." He said with a sly grin.

"Why don't we wait in the main conference room of the Maru, until we have to leave for the live fire range?" Robert gestured up the loading ramp to the dropship.

The three people walked up the loading ramp into the cooler air of the Dropship. Robert stopped only once. It was to let the cargo master know, that they needed to move the Sentinel to stand outside of the White Rabbit. He also cleared it so it could be loaded on the mech hauler, which was due in a few hours. He did not want to delay the loading of the abused machine.

They passed the next few hours, the three of them talking about how they were going to play the next few steps with plans and counter plans. The only break they took was when Jess left to take the Emma suit off. While she was gone, Robert let Lora know why she had been in disguise. When Jess returned to the room. They war gamed out steps and counter steps, to as many options as the three of them could think of in that short amount of time.

The thing that help and hurt them on the price they wanted was something out of there control. It was that the Federated Commonwealth had been making these types of weapons for a few years now. That production was only going to the best or most trusted units, and from what they could tell. The production numbers were suspected to be very low, compared to the need for the high-tech weapons. They could not be found on the black market easily or this far from where they were being made, yet. By the end of the meeting. They decided that they would just have to see how it would affect them later, as they moved closer to one of the more populated worlds of one of the Major Inner Sphere Houses.

The time seemed to fly by as they sat around the meeting room. They were surprised when the intercom buzzed for someone to attend to it. When Jess picked it up, they were told that their ride was waiting for them. When they exited the dropship, they could see that several things were happening at once. The modified 40ton medium class mech was in the last stages of being tied down on the mech hauler. The driver for that demo machine would be riding in the cab of the huge multi wheeled transporter that was carrying his mech on its flat bed.

The Dropship's Cargo Master was using the loadermech to layout fifty of the large crates that held the cannons, which would be up for inspection and sale today. Each crate was being set up, so that a group of people would be able to see what was in it. They also would be able to run checks on the weapons without blocking access to a second weapon. This action was starting to draw a little crowd of people to the pair of dropships. Rumors were spreading faster than a jumpship, about what was happening on this part of the Drop port.

There were strict orders that not one of the crates would be open, until the Captain got back from the range. The Captain was sure that it would be reported back, threw MMM spies. That the crates were out in the open, just as advertised. He was also betting, that it would also be passed along. That those weapon crates were still under the guns of the dropship. That should make the people over at MMM a little nervous, and at the same time show that this Captain was not playing for a small prize. It would take a large group of mechs and tanks to challenge the firepower of the grounded blockade runner protecting the weapons crates.

The VIP limo and the mech hauler left as one group, going out the main gate of the Drop Port. You would think that a mech scale weapons firing range would be far away from a habitable town. If that had been the case, it would have been a very long drive even in a large hover limo to make it to that testing site. The mech hauler followed the limo to the massive live fire range, that had been built by **Majesty Metals and Manufacturing** to show prospective clients their wares. It also doubled as the marksmanship range for the local militia and security force.

When they pulled into the range. The limo's door was opened, and the trio were offered to wait in the lounge while the targets and other range equipment was set up. Captain Copeland, and team, declined the offer of the lounge use. Instead they talked with the young kid, which was the pilot of the Demo mech. He was more of an Astech for one of the dropships weapons turrets and an extra driver for the workmech, than a mech jock on this mission. But there was a reason that someone so young had been approved to come on this mission. Robert could tell that the pilot needed reassurances that he would be okay. Still the young man was beaming with pride.

The pep and small talk session were interrupted by a group of about a dozen people, which were an equal mix of male and female. One of the women was in a mech cooling vest, neurohelmet, and shorts. This was very old tech to the eyes of people who were used to the full-sized pilot cooling suits, and other items not seen in this part of space in a few hundred years. Cooling suits had been what the old Star League had issued to every mech jock, tanker, and pilot for a hundred years before the fall of that organization. By now it was listed as lost tech, unless you had access to a Star League bunker or knew about the clans.

Seeing the woman in her gear had been anticipated by Robert and his group. It was expected that MMM wanted to make sure no trickery was being played on them, from inside of the massive war machine. Robert saw the group approaching first and made a slight head not to stop talking. The young kid did not get the hint, until Jess put a pointed elbow into his exposed rib cage with just the right amount of force. With all of his people looking the right way. Robert greeted the advancing group of corporate sharks and middlemen.

"Ahhhh good. You brought your own mech pilot. We have a rumble seat set up, so she can keep an eye on things inside the cockpit. Mike is the closest person we had to a qualified mech jock, and I do not want to be up there." He smiled at Mike, and he quickly took the queue to start climbing the ladder to the cockpit at the top of his ride. This statement had been rehearsed, so there was not any sting to those words taken by Mike.

After the second set of legs had disappeared into the cockpit of the machine, nothing happened for about two minutes. Then with a not so smooth set of movements, the tall mech walked to the firing line. It was only a few dozen steps from where the mech hauler had helped unload the beast. The first target was only sixty meters from the firing line, a two inch thick steel plate made to look like an outline of a tank. This was not a test of the mech's pilot, so all Mike had to do was standstill and lock the target into the decrepit fire control system built into the Sentinel. When the pilot was ready? He set the weapon to double rate of fire, and prepared to fire. But as with any plan. It went right out the window when it came to dealing with people who had their own ideas about how things should be going.

Right after the mech had made it to the firing line, a person in range safety gear started walking up to the group. She went about setting up a radio and rebroadcast system. She and the mech jock in the rumble seat would be in charge for the next few minutes. The pilot in the rumble seat now ordered how the visiting pilot would shoot, and her orders were broadcast to the people on the ground.

First the targets were engaged in a normal firing rate, then a set of shots at the double rate, then back to a normal rate, then normal rate again, then a set of double rate fire, and then double rate of fire again. It looked like they were going to shoot threw the whole ammunition load of the machine for this one live fire test. Robert did not say a word and let the locals do their tests.

Mike did not hit his targets every time, more like only about half the time. This was not a test of his piloting or his mech gunnery. It was only about the weapon that was mounted in the left arm of the battle machine. Mike called out that he was down to his last five rounds on the open frequency. The Range safety looked around at the power huddle, and after not getting any direction from them. She concluded the weapons test. She ordered the mech weapons safetied, and then allowed them to return to the same area that it had been dropped off earlier by the hauler.

Robert turned to face the group of gathered MMM personnel. He was not in sales mode. He was showing just a little anger on his face, and he let it also show in his voice and tone. "Now that you have seen the weapon in action, and it passed all of your tests to prove it is legitimate. You even had one of your guys close at hand, to make sure there was no funny business being played on you from inside the mech. Now, I think it's time to get my machine reloaded and back to the drop port. I am sure you have heard about all of the crates being unloaded and placed around the bases of my dropships. I had planned on asking 300,000 c-bills, for each one that you select from the fifty we have for sale." Robert was rehashing what he had said earlier to remind them, and to reinforce his determination. He kept his voice the same as he dropped the hammer.

"After what happened this morning, in your offices and some fact checking while we waited for some range time. I think half a million C-bills is a better starting point. I am not going to let you steal these weapons from my partners and me. I can always find another buyer, even if I have to sell them one at a time to the average mercenary on the street." Robert turned on the heels of his boots and started walking to the waiting hover limo with his two co-workers falling in behind him.

Robert and crew could not leave the area until the mech was reloaded onto the mech hauler. While they were waiting Lora looked around the spacious cab of the limo. She stopped once when her personal communication device when off. She quickly read it, and then started looking for what she was seeking around the cabin. She found what she was looking for. It was the little mini bar that held a nice chilled dozen bottle selection of alcoholic drinks or juices, all of the very expensive kind. Lora picks a bottle and held it up for Robert to look at. He shook his head in agreement and then pushed a button on the arm rest of the door. Robert called out the open window of the limo.

"Mike, why don't you join us till your ride is taken care of?"

The young man joined the older people in the back of the Limo. Lora pored each person about two fingers of the twenty five year old whiskey into the richly cut crystal glasses. After handing each person a glass, she held up hers, and started to speak.

"Mike great job! You sealed the deal. Robert, I was sent a heads ups." She waved her device in the air. "They are looking at the Scout, and a report has made it all the way to the top about the cannons you got your hands on. I don't know about the price tags they are going to go for, but half a million is a bit much. You know, I will try to get the most money I can for each one." They touched glasses and slowly sip the very expensive liquid. As she took a sip, she was hoping that she could get the half million C-Bills per weapon.

After the half wrecked mech was reloaded on the flatbed hauler. The now expanded convoy, left the range and headed back to the drop port at a nice steady cruising speed. Robert contacted the dropships to let them know that they were coming back with a few extra transports, but to have all the weapons turrets manned. This was just in case MMM wanted to take the stuff, and not pay for it. Or maybe someone else that might want to jump into the picture, like the local government, and take them under new ownership. You never can know how things can go, when you're dealing with these types of large sums of money. The hover cars, now with MMM personnel and wheeled mech hauler, were joined not long after leaving the range. The additions to the convoy were four local made wheeled vans. Robert was assuming that they were carrying a group of weapons experts for the next part of the mission. If they were carrying ground troops? They would meet with all of the firepower the White Rabbit had to offer.

As Robert and his team were getting out of the hover limo a second car, just as majestic, pulled up beside them. The car was such an eye draw, that everyone stopped working to get a second look. Robert told Mike to go ahead and unload his machine, and to store it in the Main cargo hold of the Maru. He did not want it in the White Rabbit, which it have been in before. Mike did not question the change of plans. He simply nodded his head in agreement and went about his new task.

If the Captain had wanted it moved to the star at the center of this system? Mike would have done his best to do just as he had been ordered to do. Robert turn to see the new business suited person, that was about to join the same group of people that had been at the live fire range. Robert could tell this one suit was different than the rest of the group, which he had worked with so far.

The man that exited the hover limo was nondescript looking, except for the suit. He wore it, like it was an extension of his skin and his long but well styled hair was movie star perfect. He walked slowly, but suddenly turned and came directly to Captain Copeland. When he was close enough to talk without yelling. He started by holding out his arm and open hand.

"Captain Copeland, I'm McDonogh."

Lora sucked in a sharp breath. If the name was right? This could be the head of MMM, or closely related to that powerful person. That person, who also was a member of the most powerful family group in the local space. A very big fish, in any ocean.

Robert did not even look at Lora, when she made the slight noise. He stepped forward and took the offered hand in a firm but not a crushing grip. It was returned in equal measure down to the ounce of pressure, by the other man. Robert made sure to have his own salesman smile on.

"Mr. McDonogh, nice to meet you. What can I do for you today?"

"So, you're the man that has turned about a third of my divisions on their heads today." The man gave a soft laugh, as he looked the other man up and down. "I must say. You don't look like an Atlas battlemech in human form."

"That is not what I intended. I'm just trying to pay the bills, which I have run up over the last two years on this little project. Well that, and I don't like to be underestimated or looked down on by people who have never met me. If you're mad? Then we will leave, unless you want to try to stop us." This was Robert sticking to the cover story, but he would not go down without a fight. He knew that he had taken a risk by the way he had handled Mr. Slick, and the group at the range. Robert knew that sometimes you paid through the nose for taking those kinds of risks.

"Oh no! It's not anything like that, but you have come at a time that is too good to be true. Oh, and I had already had a personal talk with the representative that was assigned to you. I let him know. That I was not happy with what he tried to do to you, and your company". The other man had drop Robert's hand. McDonogh like using his hands to talk, when he was excited. Now he was waving them about, as he talked.

 _"No, you're just a little upset. That someone from your company got caught trying to screw over someone for the good of your company."_ Thought Robert, but he was careful not to say the words aloud. He also did not let the feelings show on his face.

"So, I guess we can talk some business. I think you're a little early for closing the deal. We just returned from the range. Your guys have not even finished inspecting the weapons, which I have for sale." Robert could feel something else in the air, but he did not know what it might be. He was going for a delay of game, just so that he could try to work out where any pit traps might be. One's that might have been put down and waiting for him, and his people to fall into.

"Oh, I'm not here just for those rare cannons over there. I'm here to talk to you about your jumpship. The one that you have for sale and not the Tramp. It would fit nicely with our new rapid supply systems, we have been working on setting up for only about two decades. Most of our customers buy a dozen or less machines at once. Even when we run a restocking mission to our major outlet stores. We are only moving about a dozen battlemechs. It is kind of a waste to use a twin collar jumpship to carry that small of a load, if you know what I mean? It's that or wait even longer as someone tries to find a Mule full of cargo that just might be going to the same place we are. Sometimes delays cost more than you can possibly expect."

He was trying to make a joke of the last bit, but it fell flat on this audience. He reacted quickly to the flat joke and got back to business. "Anytime the company is thinking about spending a certain amount of C-bills? I feel like I should be there to handle some of the details, and at least meet the group selling the item or items to us. That way if it fails, for some reason? I know the why and the how of the failure. Without having to read between the lines on some memo, a few days after it hits the nearest mass market news outlet."

"It also helps, that the Scout has the smallest jump wave of any ship. So, it is hard to track on any tracking systems this side of the fallen Star League. Now what is your offer on your hopeful new jumpship?" Robert was also thinking all of those were good reasons for this massive company to buy a Scout class jumpship, even if the company man had not brought them up. Industrial espionage was alive, well, and heavily armed.

"It is, and do you not think that "new" is a bit of a stretch for the Scout. Your ship is old, but then what jumpship is not old these days? How about we start at two hundred and fifty million for her? After we get that worked out? Then we can work on the deal for the cannons you have for sale. I look at this as two different deals. That way if we cannot come to an understanding on one, it will not adversely affect the other deal in any way. It that works for you, that is?" Mike McDonogh knew some merchants that like to do a single package deal. Sometimes that work out best for the buyer, but most of the time it only helped the Seller get rid of some dead weight.

Mike was trying hard to make this work and repair the damaged ego of this trader Captain. MMM could use either or both of these lots. If they could get both? It would be a major boon, but the really big payoffs? That would still be decades away. When your company had been around for a few hundred years, a few decades was thought of as short term risk. At least most of the time, they would think of it as a short term risk.

Robert could not hold back the shock at hearing the number, "Well this is unexpected!"

Robert still needed to drag it out some. "Yes, she is old. She was used by the Star League Supply Command before the fall, but her computers were so heavily damaged. That we don't know what really happened to her after things fell apart. Last I checked? A ship of this size was going for three hundred million, at any major capital world. As you no doubt know, already. We will be spending a lot of your money here on planet, to refill our cargo holds. I think that you will be getting a lot of that money, back over the next week."

The head of the local MMM office could not help but make a sour face. "Really? That bit of information had not been passed along to me. How about we cut to the bottom line, Captain. I will only pay 270 million, but we will take care of any taxes or fees on this sale. I will also put out a message to my people to be as helpful as friends and family can be. That is my last offer."

The man but his hands behind his back and locked eyes with the visitor. He knew that 300 million was a fair price out here on the edge of nowhere, but he was with MMM. They should not have to pay retail price for anything, which was not listed as super special or lost tech. That would have been bad for business, if word got out. Word would get out, there was not any doubt about that. This was only the second jumpship to be bought or sold in this system in the last half decade. News like that could not be kept quiet for long.

"Done," was the one word reply from Robert. He would have settled for two fifty, but he had just wanted to see, how much meat was left on the bone. He now had the capital to start buying what they needed to fill his two cargo ships. He stuck out his hand, and the two men shook hands on the deal right there in the afternoon sun.

A deal of this scale was not done on a simple hand shake. That was something that mostly only happened in TRI-D. It would take maybe a day more, for all of the paperwork to be done for it to be a legal and binding deal. All of the heavy lifting was done, but the details still needed to be looked at. The rest of the group standing by Robert, both his people and MMM, were in shock. It was like someone had just pulled out a magic wand and poof it was done. People would be catching flies in their mouths for a few seconds.

"It might take up to a few days to get all of the funds together, even for MMM. But I will let the Central Bank know that it is coming out for your use. This should make it so that you can draw on the funds, if you need to." The man smiled to Robert, and he had an odd twinkle in his eyes.

"I was surprised you did not push on the final price, Captain. Your reputation as a negotiator has proceeded you, even though you have only been on planet a day or two." Now that it was done. Why not find out what he could about the new player in the area that was called Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale?

Robert put a sly smile on his face. He knew the other guy was fishing. "It was a fair price, and with you taking all the pains out of having to deal with the local government. Let's just say I feel that it was worth it, not to get every C-Bill out of the old girl. This way? I can get down to the job of buying things for my trip home. All the while your lawyers get to spend all that time fighting the government money suckers, and not me." Robert let the smile go to a full-on grin and beamed it back at the other man.

"I have been away from my family to long. The faster I can get a full cargo load? The faster I can get home. Then the faster my partners will get off my back, and the faster I can get back to my family. Even not getting the retail or new built price for the ship? I think that the offered price will get me a lot of the way home. Besides, now you might be nice to me and not be so hard to deal with when I'm the one writing the checks to pay your company."

Well, I already have paid the lawyers their salaries for the month. So, I don't mind if they have to spend a few extra hours to earn their paychecks this week." His eyes were suddenly drawn to someone over Roberts left shoulder.

"Looks like one of my armaments guys wants to talk to me. If you would excuse me for a minute." Mr. McDonogh did not even wait for a word to get in edge wise, before he walked away. It was not rude. It was just that when you had that much money? You expected people to make way for you. It was just the way it had been done for hundreds, if not a few thousand years.

The man, that was older than any other member of the MMM group, which was not wearing a dress suit. Instead of that mark of office? He had on a set of dropships crewmembers' jumpsuit. He was covered up to almost the shoulder of that jumpsuit, in dirty greases and old gun oil on both arms. He looked like he was right at home being that way to, instead of being locked away in an office somewhere. The crew suit might have been common, and dirty. But it was almost new, when he had gotten out of one of the vans less than an hour ago.

The older man was very excited about something. "Mr. McDonogh! I'm so glad you're here! You're not going to believe what they have out. If you do not string someone up by his thumbs, for almost letting this get away? I will! Is that why you're here?" He stopped talking; maybe it was because he had run out of breath. Or it could have been that he had run out of things to say. You just did not know with people like him.

"No, I was coming out anyway. It seems these Lost Tech Prospectors have found a Scout class Jumpship and a Leopard class CV, complete with a set of fighters. They were able to get the jumpship fixed up and needed to sell it. I heard about it through the Water Cooler network. Part of the story was that a certain person on the acquisitions team put his foot in it, when he tried to short change someone over a set of SL tech cannons."

By now the two men were almost shoulder to shoulder and the head of MMM kept talking. Now the boss pitched his voice lower. "I didn't know how many it might be, until I was on the way over. The local grape vine was talking it up like it was a Wolf's Dragoons size of weapons cache, by the time I got to the gate. What's your read on the cannons, give it to me straight?"

This jumpsuit and grease covered man, was not just some grease monkey. This was the company's walking encyclopedia on heavy weapons. He had forgotten more about working on mech scale weapons, than any other ten people on the planet knew about them. He was so good? That MMM gave him a heavily armed three-man protection detail, whenever he stepped one foot off of company property. That did not even count the armored car and safe room, and the other dozen safety measures the company had in place to keep anyone else's hands off of him.

The old man turned to look back at all of the open topped crates of massive cannons spread out on the super hard flame scarred drop port. He rolled his lower lip up over his top one. He hated not to know something, and he was about to have to admit to the big boss. That he did not have all the answers, which he felt like he should have at his fingertips.

"I don't know where these cannons came from. Some, I know, are of KWI manufactured and they were built before 2915. I found the right markings that tell me that. It is just that some of them are not KWI's. We don't have much information on all the manufactures of this type of cannons, from before the fall. What I do know, is that there are fifty of them on the ground. I can tell, that all of them are Ultra 5 class cannons. Some are in pretty bad shape, but all of them are useable. All of them have seen some hard use, but they are very clean. Whoever did the cleaning of the weapons? They knew their business, and it was done maybe a few months ago."

The weapons expert started to flick his lips with the point of one finger. He had a lost look on his face, but he still kept speaking aloud. "I would bet, that somehow? They found a lost shipment of these things. Maybe they were going back, to be rebuilt back to factory specs, and they did not make it for some reason."

"So, can we use any of them?" McDonogh put his hands in his expensive raw silk pants. He was happy with the deal, so far. But even if just half of these weapons were useable after all? It would be time to pop the cork on something expensive. It not? Then he might just let them go to someone else, then they can take the risk on the large lot. He would then only pick up a few of the best samples, for his people to work with. He always had a plan B in the back of his mind.

"Oh God! Yes, I do!" The gun bunny looked around to make sure that no one, he did not know, was within ear shot of him. He had been around long enough and was smart enough, to know what the "real" world was like outside of his gated housing community.

"Sir! Some look good enough. That we could put them on machines in a few weeks. All we would need to do is just check them out, do a software update, and repaint. Then we could sell them to anyone that had enough money. Now a couple of the others? We might be best to just turn them over to the R and D labs, to see if we can start making our own copies of them. Or just use them for spare parts to keep the others in operation."

The grease covered man was talking and thinking at the same time. He was dreaming of what he might learn from one of these weapons that had been laid out on the fire baked landing area. He had read all about the high rate of fire weapons the old Star League had used before it had collapsed. Now he was going to have one, and maybe find out why they never made a class 10 version of this weapon. This was a dream come true, for the old man with his skills and knowledge.

"Okay. How many do we want? How many are worth the money to buy?" asked the name and money behind the largest arms manufacture in the Magistracy of Canopus.

The grease monkey gave a short barking laugh, and then turned so that he could make square eye contact with his boss. "That is easy sir. ALL… OF…. THEM!" He almost said it too loud, but the noise coming from an active Drop port covered his statement.

"Okay Jon. How much are they worth? You're the best person we have, that knows Star League tech within a hundred light years of us. They started asking 300,000 C-Bills each, then they went to half a million each after a leadership issue within our company. I just committed us to a big chunk of money for the jumpship. We can go deeper, short term. I don't think this Copeland guy is the type of a person to let someone who was trying to stick it to him, get off of the hook that easy. He has some high cards to play and a grudge against us. I need to know how, I can talk him down on the price."

"Mr. McDonogh. You could sell them for a few million each, if the Fedrats had not started making them already. I don't know now? I would think both prices are within reason for these weapons. You have always been better at working out what stuff was worth or what someone would be willing to pay for something. I would go with that they all need some overhauling, and there's no ammunition on hand for them. We are going to have to make some, just to test them."

"Thank you, Jon. I will see how many of these new toys we can take off Mr. Copeland's hands for you." He patted the older man on the shoulder, and turned around to look for the person who was about to take more of his company's money. And in some cases, more of his own money in the next few minutes. At his level sometimes the lines got a little blurry.

"Why don't you see if you can talk him out of that mech? It's not combat ready. I think that we could still use it for testing. It did feed the weapon on the range without any issues, which they could see. I heard that it even hit the target a few times." Asked the grease covered man, to the back of the man with the expensive suit.

The richest man on the planet went looking for the person he needed to start talking to again. He found all three of the same people still together in one group. They were talking to another person that Mike McDonogh would bet was the Cargo Master of the dropship behind them. When he was closer, he addressed the target.

"There you are Captain. I have talked with my people." He used his head to point towards his people off to one side of the dropship. "They are still going over the weapons, but I think we can start working on a price for their sale."

In truth it still looked like a pack of ants crawling in and around, all of the now open crates holding the nine ton weapons. They were all covered in muck, but looked to be as has happy as a dog, with a fresh bone.

"Are you really stuck on that half a million C-bills mark, a weapon?" The head of MMM had a salesman smile on his face.

Robert was in character and ready to work on the deal. "These weapons, maybe are old. But a little cleaning, and some elbow grease to polish them up? You could put them on the shoulders of those Shadow Hawks you are making, in no time. I will bet, you could charge a mercenary unit through the nose for one of those modified mechs. It would make up the cost of the weapon, at that price, plus any R and D you might have to do to get it to fit and feed right. If you did that kind of refits to a dozen battlemechs? You could cover the price of all fifty of the cannons we are selling."

 _"Man! This one is sharp,"_ thought Mr. McDonogh to himself. _"Maybe I can hire him away from this company. He would be amazing to use against the Free World's League!_ "

McDonogh had to shake his head to get back into the game. "You have done your homework, Captain. But ever since the rumor made it out here that the Federated Commonwealth, has put them and some other stuff back into production. That means they are not as rare as they used to be."

He did not use the slang term Fedrats and any of another dozen terms. At least not around someone, who might not like the term and thus cost him business. "But now that word has gotten out. There is a strong demand for the new tech weapons all over the sphere, but those are being slowly fed. Did you by chance, find any of those Class 10 anti-mech shotguns with these smaller weapons?" He pointed over to the rows of high speed cannons laid out on the ground.

Robert was stunned but recovered quickly at the casual way someone was talking about Star League weapons. If he would have been drinking anything? It would have been blown out of his nose. "I'm sorry. A what?"

Robert did not need to look over, to know that Jess was all ears. This might be confirmation of what Duke Terry had told them at the last stop. After much thinking, and many meetings, while they waited to make the last jump. The delay had originally been meant to buy time for the Family to reply to the contact message. The ship's leadership and technical groups had thought that the FedCom rolling out the Ultra 5, was like when one of the Houses had begun rolling out the 45ton Hatchetman battlemech. It was just an example of hyper focused development, and not a general capability uplift that was needed to do the work. Now It looks like they might have been wrong, and the Duke was right after all.

The rich man did not seem to notice the delaying tactic. "The FedCom is supposed to have started limited production of a Class 10 Auto cannon. It is supposed be able to fire a standard round, or some type of round that can sandblast the armor right off of a mech. I'm not talking about a few off prototypes. They are supposed to be in limited production of the final design. If you see anything else out there from the old Star League days? I will pay you top C-Bill, if you come to me first. Captain, I don't know if you were lucky once or you have a set of skills that are unique in my experience. For some reason, I get the feeling it was not luck. No, I am not going to ask you were you found this stuff. I know that would be bad form, to do something like that. I would also bet that if I did. I would, and my company, would never see you again. And I'm so not going to do something that dumb. That is besides making the offer of being the first look."

Robert played along. A salvage company with a strong corporate backing, would only add to their cover story. That is if they did make any return trips to this area. Besides the foot print of MMM was not small. " _Well, it was always nice to have a repeat customer. Plus, one that understand some basic rules of how the game must be played."_

Robert did not let his thoughts color his face. "If you're within a half a year travel time of us? You have a deal. It would be helpful, if you can get me some books on what you're looking for. Yea, that would be helpful. The only reason I knew about these."

Robert points to the rows of cannons. "It was that kid, which was in the mech today. Somehow he knew what they were and could get one to work, with some help from the engineering crews on the jump and drop ships."

The rich man held out his hand again, and he had anything but a poker face on. "Now that is a deal, Captain Copeland. I will work with my people to get you any information we have to you and your people. I will also make sure you have some contact information, which you can use at any HPG for free. Then we can figure out how to do any future exchanges between us."

Mr. McDonogh got the feeling that this guy might have a few more high tech toys in his toy box somewhere. He wanted his name, and more importantly his company, on the top of the contact list. If this Captain did have some more stuff for sale down the line? That would be interesting. _"Now to get back on track to seeing how much these weapons were going to cost me_ ".

Now Captain. "How about we stick with your 300,000 C-Bill offer. The same as that offer you made back at the office?"

Robert was rocking from heel to toe in his boots. He could see Jess and Lora watching him out of the corners of his eyes. "I really should push for more money, than my first quote. Your guy, which we talked to first? He really got under my skin. I did have Lora write up the for-sale ads that I told him about, already."

Robert made a show of thinking about it. "Let's do it this way. Each one of the cannons you want? You will pay cash, and then load it on one of your cargo trucks. I will stick to the 300,000 price, but I want cash in hand before each weapon is loaded. Yes. I know it's petty, but he tried to make life rough on me in your company's name. So, it is a little payback. I want the word to get around, and not just on this planet, not to screw with me or my company. I'm sure you understand, all there is to know about a company's reputation."

McDonogh thought, " _Well, that was unexpected_." He let his poker face slip back into place. " _Maybe he just wants to smooth the road a little bit, after showing he has a strong hand_." Things have been going good so far, well minus what had happened earlier. Paying in cash was going to be a pain, especially this late in the day. However, it was not a show stopper by any stretch. He had hoped that he could get the weapons for 400K. He had no expectations of being able to get them, for the first offered price. That might not have been the smartest move the Merchant Captain had made. Then again. Maybe it was a smart move, if he wanted to do business with MMM in the future.

"That is workable. Let me make some calls, for the trucks and the money. Do you mind if we retire to a more comfortable location while I get some things worked out?"

Robert looked at Jess and waved her to come closer. "Jess. Why don't you escort our guest to the conference room? I will be up in a few minutes."

The implied task was to try to find out exactly how much things had changed in the Inner Sphere, which is besides the two new/old cannon designs that it seemed to have been reproduced. Jess also would like to personally see what else, like the double efficiency heat sinks that might be being worked on. She would dig to find out what else was almost close to being public knowledge. A source this high, must have access that was at an impressive classification level.

Robert stayed outside of the dropship helping where he could, but mainly he was just helping to keep an eye on everything that was going on around the two dropships. That was very hard to do, with so many strangers walking around their ships. So far, three times and counting. He had to run people off, that wanted to see what everyone was looking at. Robert did not think that the two long black hover limos, had help to keep the weapons sale low profile.

 _"Well, you can't have foreseen every minor problem or remember all of them from the past. Not from all of those years ago."_ Robert was thinking so hard. That he did not see the convoy of trucks approaching the dropships, until they were almost to his dropship. He had totally lost track of time, as he try to keep an eye on all of the moving parts.

There were several different types of trucks in the convoy coming to a stop near his armed dropship. Most were a type of wheeled flatbed cargo trucks with some kind of lift hoist mounted on the very back of the truck's cab. The second most numerous of the types of vehicles in the convoy, but there were only three of them, were a type of high sided van. Each one of them had Police Crowd Control markings on the side. The first truck in the little convoy was the only one of its type. It was a bank's armored car. Right behind it, was another sedan. All of them were coming towards the Mule class dropship at about 10kph.

Robert was standing next to the Cargo Master when it was obvious that this convoy was heading towards them, but Robert was the first one to speak. "Well, this just got interesting. That is a lot of cargo lift they are bringing. Cargo Master! Get ready for some moving!" The Captain pitched his voice to cut through the noise around him.

 _"Maybe, I should have not brought up the Cash thing?"_ Thought Robert, " _because that little good idea is about to come back and bite me in the butt."_

When the new convoy stopped, a heard of people wearing police clothing exited the three vans in a wave of uniforms. They quickly started to form a line around the dropship facing out. Soon they had stopped anyone from seeing or getting close, to what was about to be exchanged on the drop port tarmac. They only had stun sticks or light pistols, but the metal badges were firepower enough to keep any of the on lookers at bay.

Robert was getting a little nervous about seeing all those armed men. That is until he notices the heaviest weapon they had was a medium caliber sidearm on one side of their hips. He was caught looking at them, because he did not notice Mr. McDonogh exiting the dropship. He most definitely did not notice the rich man walking up behind him. Maybe it was just luck, that he was able to do this, without making much sound to betray his steps.

Robert tries not to jump a little, when a voice came from behind him. It worked and it brought him back to his local environment. "Looks like my banker made it after all. I was starting to worry, that I might have to ask for a delay of payment for your stock." This had come from the rich man, which was standing behind him. This time Robert noticed that he had a full powered grin on his face.

"I take it you have decided which ones, of the cannons, you wanted to buy today." Now all Captain Copeland had to do was get his heart rate back under control. Well that and try to figure out, how many cannons he was about to sell. Then he could decide what to do with the cash. That last detail would come later.

"Oh yes! My head weapons guy said, that he wanted all of them. So, I will have to try to not let him down. You know how depressed those grease gun monkey types get, when they don't get all of their toys that their hearts are set on. I also checked with my department head, which makes the Shadow Hawk. She told me, that she was looking at being short about twenty Armstrong J11s this year. I am thinking we will use some of the ones you are selling, as their replacements. I think Magestrix Emma would offer up a nice bonus, if we could give her a lance of those modified mechs. Don't you think? I am betting that it will take some time, maybe six to twelve months to get the first one ready to hand over. After that we should be able to get all twenty done in a few months." What he was not saying was that the time line, he had just referred to. It had included building the new mechs from scratch, and not the time needed to just refit a machine already far down the production line.

Robert had not expected to sell all fifty of the weapons, at one shot. It had been planned that they might be able to sell thirty or forty at the top end. That was what the number pushers back home had thought. Many had said that there was no way that all fifty would be picked up for an entire planet. They were planning to sell most of the cannons off in ones and twos, to the military units along the way between the major worlds. That was how they had done it on every other time, which they had been on a resupply run to the Inner Sphere. If the numbers were ever released, to the general public of the Inner sphere. It would show that the Wolverines were the fifth largest seller of arms to this part of space. It would also point to them being the key supplier of "Star League" designs to the Aurigan Coalition to the Free World's League and every were in-between.

This one stop would cause a rewrite of any future operational plans. If other manufactures of a like size had this kind of money on hand? That alone would prove that things had changed in the IS, since the last supply run. "Looks like I will be able to keep the payment for the jumpship in the bank for a little longer. I take it that the bank truck is carrying fifteen million C-Bills in cash form?" For a second, Robert was hoping that it was not, but only for a second. That sounded like a lot of money. But to this man? it was the sale price of three of the Shadow Hawks his company made by the gross.

"You did say cash on pick up, did you not?" McDonogh smiled. He could tell that the Captain was trying to work out, in his head, if there was enough room in the two ship's safes for that kind of money. Each merchant dropship was known to have at least one good sized safe. So, Robert should have access to at least a pair of them on the dropships _. "Sometimes it sucks, when you get what you were asking for._ " Thought Mike McDonogh.

"Captain, would you mind using your loader mech to help with the loading of my weapons onto the cargo trucks? It would speed things up. The drop port did not have any cranes available, for another few hours. I have a dinner engagement, that my wife would be very upset if I missed." Mike had a sly little smile as he addressed the merchant.

Robert gave a light laugh, before walking across to the Cargo Master. He leaned over and pitched his voice, so that only the Cargo Master could hear. When he turned back around towards the MMM man. The Cargo Master was already heading toward the stationary machine. By the time Copeland had packed down the money boxes coming off the armored bank car. The hard plastic and metal crates holding the weapons were loaded on to the flatbed trucks owned by MMM. As it turned out all the metal boxes, that were used to transfer the money, would not fit in the Mules single main safe. They still needed to use the smaller safe that was in the dropships Captain's quarters. In the end all of the heavily armored doors on the safes were able to lock. It was not easy, but they were successfully locked.

While Robert was taking care of that, not to small of a problem, something needed for the future was done. Just before McDonogh left, the head of MMM passed to Jess a hand-written note. On it was a list of points of contact printed on one side. This is what they could use, when it came to contacting MMM in the future. It was a late dinner, had by all parties that night.

Captain Copeland called a pair of food catering trucks over to the landing pads his ships were using. Everyone would have a nice meal, and it would all be pay for from the sale of their cargo. It was a nice break, because now no one would have to cook or clean up all the dishes left after words. Both jobs were not highly sought after on a normal day, much less on a day that had entailed so much heavy labor under a hot sun.

Robert, Jess, and Lora all sat together on one table, while they ate under the open night skies of the drop port. About the only time they were not eating, was when they got to watch a dropship light off its engines and it fought gravity on the other end of the drop port. It was during one of these lulls that Robert brought back up the real reason for the mission.

"Lora have you posted the message, that we will be looking to buy certain cargos?"

"Yes, I did. It should hit all of the major commerce sites, by midnight. I thought we would have more time for them to sit out there. I'm not complaining, mind you. This has been both busy and a productive two days."

She looked down at the expensive time peace on her left wrist. She had been surprised at the power player that had been sent out to the drop port, and was glad that he went right to Robert to do the negotiations. That did not mean that she was not pulling her weight. "I make it about three or four hours from now, and then it will be on the world-wide network, with a bullet." She stopped talking to take a sip of some kind of cold drink from off one of the food trucks. It was a brand that Copeland had never heard of before tonight. She was positively beaming when she started talking again.

"The deal for the jumpship alone will make my career. Not wanting to sound ungrateful or anything, but I would like to transfer my fees out of your accounts as soon as possible. I don't want any unwanted attention from the local authorities, and my accountant will need to start working on protecting it from any surprise penalties."

Robert looked at the local member of the Family and nodded his head to her. "I understand. We have attracted a lot of attention already, but as soon as the C-bills are in. We can work to have some of them transferred to your account."

He looked around and made eye contact with Jess. "I think we need to have a meeting tomorrow, say 0900 local. We need to see if we have had any bites on those posts. We also need to pool all the information that we have been able to find out. I want to put it on the table about all of the major players in this local area." Each of the other two people around him shook their heads, in acceptance of the plan if not order.

Lora stood up and stretched her legs, working out the kinks that had developed while setting on the portable table the food truck had brought out for the diners to relax and eat at. "Well, I need to get home and get some rest. It has been a long day. I will see you all in the morning. I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be a longer one, then today was." She gave an off handed wave and started to walk to the transportation stand that was set up to take ships crews into town for a night of "entertainment".

"Jess, I think she has a point. I think a bed is calling my name."

Robert rose from the table and walked over to the catering truck. It took him a few minutes to get the owner and operator of the truck to come over to talk with him. Robert settled the bill and gave the older woman a nice tip, before turning and walking up the personnel ramp to the dropship. As soon as she re-entered the truck, a light sign said that she would be closing in half an hour and it was "Last Call". It did not take long for Robert to be asleep, in his cabin for the night.

Jess watched her commanding officer, until he disappeared from her line of sight. " _Well I better get up and get going. Today's reports and notes will not get written all by themselves_." She was still working out how to best manage her time, so far it had not been that bad. She was hoping that she would be able to get a few hours' sleep tonight.

She rose and left the plastic table on her way to the dropship's ramp with more energy than she felt. She did not go to her cabin, right away. She went to the main conference room. She had a lot of recordings and TRI-V images to review, before she can get some sleep tonight. She makes a mental promise to herself, before she starts the paperwork. That is, that she would not stay up passed midnight local time. That was because she thought that Lora was right, tomorrow was going to be another long day. She knew that she had one advantage over Captain Copeland. When they lifted off of this planet, she would be able to sleep as much as her body wanted to.

Notes.

 **How would you deal with a major weapons manufacture?** Now MMM is not in the league of Cal-Boeing or Corean Enterprises, but you get the idea about how it might happen. Also how do you sell a lot of lost tech, without someone just taking it.

 **Emma.** No, I did not know that the current leader of the MC was called Emma when I came up with the name for the Emma suit.

 **The Wolf's Dragoons.** We all know about them, but to the SLiE they are just another mercenary group. Think of that magazine as something about history at your local drugs store. What got their attention as not the large mercenary unit? It was the image of three iconic Wolf's Dragoon mechs in one shot.

 **Noone**. It is one word, and the E is silent. It would sound like Noon not No one. Yes it is a name and it thought that it would be fitting.


	12. Chapter 12 14 Dec 3046

**Chapter 12**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up By

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **14 Dec 3046**

 **The Dunianshire system.**

Breakfast was served on the dropship right at 730 and would be finished no later, then 830 local time. This was to make sure everyone had some hot food in them, before their duty shift or in some cases after their shift had just ended. Jess and Robert picked up their meal in the dining hall but retreated to the conference room a few decks up, to eat and read in private. "Open Space" was not something that a dropship was known to have in any abundance.

The pair could not afford to only do one thing at a time, not today. The meeting started right at 0900. It could have started a little earlier, because the Captain of the White Rabbit had been the last to arrive to this first of its kind meeting at 0850. Even Lora, was there well before the planned 0900 start time. Everyone was eager to see how yesterday had turned out, and what today would bring. Some were wanting to compare it with past reports from years ago, and one was excited to be doing something that her family had been doing for a few generations without anyone knowing. This was new to her, and it was exciting.

Robert sat at the head of the table and was facing the only door to the room. When the ship's clock read 0900 on the dot, Robert tapped the table with the end of a metal pen. "Let's get started. First, I was in contact with the Styx this morning. They report that they have two fighters on CAP. This is the maximum strength they can have in operation under this systems rules. They were happy to report that they have had no issues, yet. The crew of the Scout jumpship will be returning to them, in two days. That is, if the money makes it to the bank. All ships have been rotating crews to the Recharge station, so they can have some R and R. They report that they started getting odd questions. This would have seemed to have started late yesterday. The Styx has raised the internal alert level, just in case. They are keeping the higher alert level quiet, and they are not doing anything that would be obvious, to anyone outside of their hull. Next to report will be the dropship captains." Robert looked over to the White Rabbit's commander and gave a nod so that he could start his update.

"Sir! We have nothing new to report on my ship's operation. We have had zero incidents to report. Current cargo load consists of twenty-five Class 5 ultra-class auto cannons. We have five of the old Armstrong j11's and fifty of the computers systems, all in there shipping crates. We hope to release a few of the crew to see the sights and maybe do some personal shopping by noon today. If we wait too long, it will draw some unwanted attention."

The Captain for the Lisbon Maru was next. "Sir, I will not cover the communications with outside sources, Miss Noone will be taking care of that. We had one unauthorized person, which tried to enter the ship last night. Other than that? We have no personnel issues to report. The male intruder was detained and turned over to the local law enforcement, with only a few bumps to show anyone for his troubles. We have moved all the cargo to Bay One or the top bay. We also have the Mech tied down in Bay One, but we can move it back over to the White Rabbit if you want. That should only take thirty to forty-five minutes or so, after you give the word that you want her moved. The Cargo Master reports that our current cargo load is made up of the last twenty Ultra Class 5 auto cannons and forty of the computer systems. Three of the computer systems are ready to off load and are stored by the main personnel entry point. He can have more ready to come down with only an hour notice."

Jess was going to be the next one to brief. She was not sure about including Miss Noone in on this material. Then again, she was a "Family Member" and that deserved some consideration. Who knows what they have been through and what it must be like living behind enemy lines for over a hundred years? So, Jess took a deep breath, and looked back at her notes. When she was ready, she just started talking

"The tech slide, that had been going on since about midway through the First Succession War, seems to have stopped. In some cases? It has already reach back up to the early Star League tech base level in some areas. Not surprising, it is focused on warfighting tech. I think that it should start spreading into other areas, as that tech base is allowed to take deeper root. From what we have been able to find out. It is that Ultra, and LB-X auto cannons started into production between 3035-3040 by the Federated Commonwealth. Please see the notes on the current governments, it is on the ship's servers. We also have information that the Free World's League started up limited production of the Gauss Rifle sometime in the 3040's. The Combine also might have Extended Ranged Large Lasers, and ER PPC's and some Pulse laser tech. Some of that data is a little less clear."

Jess was looking around the table. All of the eyes were wide, and jaws were open, to include Lora's. She was about to drop the next bombshell on them. "We got a lot of this information from one source on this planet, but it fits with what we learned from Duke Terry and her people. From this time forward, until we find out differently. We have to assume that when it comes to weapons? We will have to assume that they are up to early Star League tech devices. We do not know, it any of the House militaries will have Warships, or if they have even started building them. We now think that the number of jumpships in production has started to climb. But it is unknown at this time by how much and how the numbers are spread out over the whole Inner Sphere. I have a public sources report about how the increase in jumpships production is going to cause a marked increase in interstellar trade all across the Inner Sphere."

 _"Yep that went over well,"_ she thought. She looked around the table, and she could tell that everyone was still processing the information she had found last night. She waited patiently for the attacks on her information to begin.

Robert had one of his fingers across his lips and he was in deep thought. He did not speak for a few seconds. "That was what I was afraid of when Terry, who lives out in the out of beyond, knew about ultra tech cannons. This will make it easier, but also make it harder in some ways, to sell our cargo. I want everyone to keep an ear out, but I agree with Jess and her assessment. Jess please make a copy of all your reports. I want you to put a copy in the main safes on the Styx and Hobgoblin, when we get back to the jump point. This information will be marked critical and it must get back home, even if all of the rest of us do not."

Robert looked around the table. The group could tell that he was not making a suggestion, but he had given an order. One that could have the deepest consequences, if it was not followed. Now it was his turn to bring up something for the whole meeting. Everything that was said or done in this meeting would be noted in the ship and mission logs. But it would not have the same level of markings as he had just ordered done to Jess's work

Captain Copeland did not want the mood to change, just yet. He wanted them focused on the mission. He opened a folder and passed to each person a set of color copies of the images that they had found while waiting to talk with Mr. Slick at the MMM office.

"In front of each of you is a set of images we found yesterday, in a scrapbook that Lora's family has been keeping. Can any of you, besides Jess, identify the mechs in this image?"

Robert was not that surprised, that none of the people in the room responded to his question. He let them look at the images for a few more seconds, for the confused looks to take a good hold. "I reviewed copies of the reports, from the previous resupply runs a few times. What you're looking at is a cover story about a battle, that happened back in 3028. It was between the mercenary group called the Wolf's Dragoon's and the Combine. The mercenaries went up against a larger Combine force. We have had reports about this group, since they showed up in the Inner Sphere back around 3005. High Command back home was of the thinking that. They were just a larger than normal mercenary unit and they had a few odd names associated with them. It was assessed that there was nothing worth looking into, any deeper, than what could be found in a few major news outlets. I think we have maintained blinders about them after those first reports. There only mercenary scum, why worry about them? It was not like we would hire them. Whoever of our people that took those first images of them did not have the hobby, I do. Or maybe we did not have images of all of their machines, and we did not go looking for them. I only remember reading a few text reports on them. They were mostly about the major battles they were in, and how well maintained their equipment was. They did point out the few odd names like Natasha Kerensky and a small unit called the Black Widows. Now it would seem that we can connect a few more dots."

Robert could tell that they were not tracking with what he was trying to say. "You see? My hobby is taking images of old war machines. Those three battle mechs are an 85ton Shogun, a 100ton Annihilator and the last is a 100ton Imp class battlemech. Judging from the blank looks, that I'm still getting from you all. It is that those names do not mean much to any of you, either. If a unit had an old Shogun or Annihilator in their order of battle? I would not be having a heart attack, which I am having right now."

Robert waited for the chuckling to stop. "What had kicked me…. in the knees, was the Imp. The Imp was never built in the Inner Sphere. It is a Clan machine, born and bred. All three of those machines were in operation with the Exodus ground forces, when our people left them, or we would be murdered."

Now it was sinking into them. The Clans were back. No, they had been back for 40 years. Only no one back home knew it. It was an intelligence failure on an epic scale. Robert was looking at the top of heads as the rest of the members looked down at the images. "From the name of the unit, I have to assume that they are from Clan Wolf. I cannot see the Ghost Bears, or the Jade Falcons going by any name that is any way connected to the word Wolf or Widow Makers. We need to find out as much as we can about them, without letting any information about us getting out to them. Clan Wolf and Clan Wolverine did not get along that well, before we picked up stakes and tried to leave. I would bet that their reaction to us has not gotten any calmer. We need to find out if they left the clan, or has their clan moved into the Inner Sphere like we did. Are has something else happened back in Clan space? Or could they be on some kind of long-term scouting mission sent by the ilKhan."

Robert gave a half laugh. "We don't even know what questions to ask yet. I would like to remedy that, before we start on our trip back to New Circe."

The stress had risen to a palatable level in the briefing room, with two threats to their home world laid out before them right after breakfast. Now it was time to defuse that stress somewhat. "I would like to wrap up the new information with Lora's part of the meeting. I think that I have shown that we need to keep all of our eyes and ears open."

It took a few seconds for Lora to collect her thoughts. This was just too much new information to take in all at one time. She had only just gotten use to the idea of what happened to the, she now had to call it. The Original Exodus fleet, after all these years. Now to think that not only was there one group near what was thought of as Human space, but there might be a second group of ex-SLDF forces hiding in plain sight in the heart of the Inner Sphere. She gave herself a little mental shake to get back on track. It was never good to be wool gathering in your first big meeting.

"I re-checked just before the meeting. And the money has not been put in the account, for the sale of the jumpship. The Bank is aware that the sum is coming, and from whom it is coming from, as well as the base idea of what the end amount could possibly be. They have agreed for us to be able to start drawing on those coming funds free of charge or any fees by noon today. But first thing tomorrow, if it has not been transferred by then. I will start making phone calls to MMM and see what is going on. I also have looked at the total capital, which you had before the sales yesterday." She stopped talking for a second before continuing.

"You have 530,000 in C-Bills, or trade bars. That we can start spending today, if you need to do that. It was mostly what you brought with you to this system. The sales of the cannons, for cash, will add thirteen point five million C-Bills to your available capital. When the rest of the money hits the bank? It will add another two hundred and forty million C-Bills to your capital resources."

A loud set of whistles went around the table. None of them, except Robert, had ever dealt with numbers that large before. With a slight smile, she went on. "Yesterday, I posted most of the list that you gave me on the boards. I only gave out, what Captain Copeland approved for public release at this time. I have the last half of the list ready to go, and I'm waiting until I have been given the word for its release. I would recommend that we do not hold onto that last part of the list for too long."

She smiles broadly. You know the full toothy kind of smile. "I already have a list of venders that would like to do business with us. I expect the current list of venders to grow, threw out the day. I have two large hover cars, with drivers, set up to take whoever needs to go check out the proposed loads from those first set of venders."

She passed out a card to each of the people at the table. It had a set of names and contact numbers for a taxi service. "I have contacted this company and made some arrangements. They will pick you up from anywhere around the local area and drop you off at the dropships. Captain Copeland, you will have to settle the bill, before you lift off planet. I have reduced the list of vendors, to only the ones that have the best reputation or the ones that I have worked with before. Captain Copeland will have the complete list, so that he can double check to make sure that I'm being honest. It's always nice to have a second set of eyes on a project like this. I am also a firm believer in trust but verify. I don't want someone to say that I was biased. Besides one of the other shadeier groups might have something the others might not have." She smiled at the Captain before continuing. She was on a roll now. This was her job, and she was very good at it.

"The first company is a large vehicle transport company. They said that they have twenty of the 10ton class flatbed cargo trucks for sale, that match what you wanted. I told them that someone would be going over to see them, soon. The inspection is to make sure that the parts are compatible with what "Our" planet can produce. I asked, they are not fusion driven, but they are electrical/battery powered engines. A second vendor called, and they said that they have ten of the 50ton class of flatbeds and one of the 70ton class of heavy mech hauler all for sale on their lot. The person that I talked to did not know what the power plant each of the trucks might come with. But when we send someone out? They can check that out for you as well as your normal check list."

She went back to her notes and stopped talking, till she flipped to the one note she wanted. "Most of what has come in, for request on items they have for sale, have not been on our published list. They are more or less automatic, when word gets out that a cargo ship has open space that needs to be filled. I did not put this one item on the cargo alert, but someone contacted us. It would seem, that they have a FedCom WLF-1 Wolfhound mech, that they thought we might be interested in. I called them back for some more information and got what was basically background on the beast." Lora could tell that this was getting the attention of about half of the meeting personnel.

"It was supposedly picked up from a Combine supply depot, not too long ago. The Combine had pulled it off of the battlefield back in 39. It was repaired sometime later than that. They say that none of the Combine Mech jocks wanted to pilot the thing. I think that the Dragon's supply department had it sold on the open market, and that was how it wound up out here. I bet the jock needs the money, or the mech is a wreck, or both. I still think that it would be worth a look. I understand that it is quickly becoming a major light class mech for the FedCom units and the mercenaries' that are working with them. I also have a line on bulldozers and other construction equipment that was on the list. I expect more request for information to come in, as the days go on. I have set it up so that any more requests will come straight to me on my little electronic leash." She waved her digital data and communication pad in the air to show the leash she was talking about.

Robert looked around the table, and then looked back at the Captains of the Maru and White Rabbit. "I would like you all to put together two six person teams. Send one team to each of the vehicle dealers and have all of the trucks checked out. Make sure they have a copy of the check list with them. You both can decide what vender each one of the teams gets to go to. I think Jess, Lora, Mike, and I will take a car and go see the person selling the Wolfhound mech."

Robert looked back at the two Captains, making sure to have eye contact with each one of them for a few seconds. "We can start releasing some of the crews for shopping trips. Remind them of the rules, before they leave the ship along with the normal safety briefing. I will be authorizing the release of an additional one hundred C-Bills advance on back pay, in cash for each person, to do as they will. I know there is a money exchange location at the main annex of the drop port, so breaking the large bills should not be a problem for anyone."

Copeland let his voice get hard. "I expect them to follow the rules, which were set down. If they don't? I will pull everyone back into the ships, and we will see how long it takes for me to get confidence in them again. Please pass along those exact words to your crews."

He again stopped talking to make sure the other officers got the point of his statement. "Now, do we have any other business? No. Good, let's plan to meet again at say 1700 local and see where we are at on getting some cargos lined up." Roberts starting to rise was the signal that the meeting was over, and the rest of the people present rose also to start about the task of the day.

Lora, Jess, and Robert walked out of the room together. After one quick pit stop. They were waiting at the personnel exit of the dropship, until they were joined by Mike. Mike had been sent a message to meet here for a mission, which he was needed on. Robert greeted the almost mech pilot with a handshake, and then turned to the group.

"Now that the gang is all here. We can see, what we can find out about this light mech that the local wants to sell us. Mike. Do you think you can pilot it? You're the only one I know on this mission, which has been checked out on House military tech neurohelmets before we left." Robert was in "Captain Mode". He had asked a question and he would not only want an answer, but he wanted to know the truth.

Mike looked down at his feet for about two seconds, and then looked up about six inches over the head of the commander of this mission. "Sir! I can do it. I worked out with every mech, that we had data on at the training base simulator, before we lifted off planet on my own time. I don't know about taking one into battle and being an asset to the mission, or something like that."

Mike did not want to make eye contact with Robert, and he looked like he might want to bolt out of the dropship. Then he got himself back under control. "Sir. I washed out of mech combat school, because I did not take even one mech down during the final test. I am a failure, as a combat mech trooper. I do not know why I was picked to be the backup workmech driver and weapons turret crew on this dropship." Now his head came up to look at his commander and the whole convoy commander, in the eyes.

Robert was concerned, as he was looking into that set of wet young eyes. He knew that Mike was a mech tech or mechanic before the Colonials had found them. He also had been one of the few people who was qualified to work on the type of mech that they were bringing on this trip. "Mike, you will do fine. Do you know why you were chosen for this mission?" Robert let more emotion show on his face, and it soften the look. He wanted and needed Mike to know, what part he was selected to play on this supply run. Normally on a supply run a crew had over a year to find their place, without being hand carried to this conclusion. That was even before they made contact with the Inner Sphere.

"No, Sir?" Mike was confused. It was the goal of everyone who was an accident or an instant to want to be a mech jock. He had failed out of the final testing, and he had been assessed to be a grease monkey on the machines he had wanted with all his heart to take into combat. Clan Wolverine only had so many open mech pilot positions each year. They would only take the best for those limited number of openings. He had even taken classes on dropship turret repair, on his off time. That had been what he was planning to do, to pay the bills. A mech wrench turner did not pay that well, when you were not on active duty.

"When it was decided to bring a mech on this trip, to show off the ultra-auto-cannon. They drew up two lists of names. One list was for qualified mech pilots, and one was for qualified mech techs. Your name was on both of those lists. Do you know how many people showed up upon both of those lists?" Asked Robert, he was shifting into a fatherly mode. He had spent some of last night reviewing a few personnel files while eating dinner.

"I was? I don't know how many others, had the same skills as I do, but I would think there had to be at least a few hundred." Mike was shaking his head left and right like he was trying to throw the thoughts into the right bin in his brain.

Robert put his arm onto the other man's shoulders and gave it a slight shake. "Yours was the only person, who could do both jobs on the whole planet. You had bad luck on your Trial for Position on graduation. I bet you would have had another shot, in a year or two. And this time? I bet that you would have won it, hands down." That was all he would say. Robert started walking down the walkway towards the pickup point outside of the grounded dropship.

Robert and his team did not have to wait long at the pickup point, for it to do its advertised job. Lora had called for a car, before they had left the dropship conference room. It was a nice car, but not too nice. It was a six-person passenger hover car that pulled up for them, and it was not your normal bar hopping buss. Lora passed the information about their destination to the driver, after the doors had closed behind them with a soft click. The four of them did not talk on the trip out, after the information had been past to the driver. They only listened to the random selection of music, which was playing in the background as they shot through town at what seemed like an excess of speed.

The building the hover car pulled up to was tall, but it was not that wide. It looked more like an industrial building, then a home that it was supposed to be. It was on the edge of town, but not that far out of the way of major traffic avenues. It was right off the main road, which connected this area to the drop port in almost a direct line of a high-speed access. The four members of the off-world team got out of the blue hover car and looked around the area. The taxi did not leave the area, as the renters started to make their way to the building's front door. The rental just pulled down the road a little ways, so that the traffic way was cleared of its obstruction. Robert was about to ring the announcement button, when the door opened for them.

"So, you must be Captain Copeland." This was said by a lower 30ish man with blond hair, as he looked up from his wheelchair blocking the doorway.

"Are you the person that contacted us, and has a mech that you would be looking to sell to us?" Robert made eye contact by looking down, but he was not steering down at the other man. That was a knife edge juggling match that very few could pull off. Where he came from? Seeing someone in a wheelchair permanently, was a very rare item.

"That would be me. I'm Don, nice to meet you." Said the man in the wheelchair, and he holds up and out his hand to the older man.

Robert shook the man's hand. He had a strong grip. That was for some reason, a surprised to Robert and he waited for just a few seconds before letting go of the hand. "Nice to meet you Don. Can we see what you have?" Robert pointed his chin towards the insides of the industrial building.

"Follow me," and the men spun around with in the length of his chair in a very practiced maneuver. With a few pumps on the large back wheels. He had wheeled himself away from the doorway and was at a rapidly growing distance going into the "home".

The whole first floor was open, and when Robert entered the home. He could see the whole room, after not covering even five steps from the front door. In the center of the room, was a bipedal mech which vaguely had an animal appearance of its head. When everyone was in the building. The heavy front door shut automatically, and the lights raised to almost spotlight the one combat machine in the room. It was a light class battlemech that ranged from 20 to 35tons. This one was at the upper end of that class. It was supposed to be right at thirty-five tons, according to the limited data Robert had seen.

"So, Don. How did you come by this machine? You called it a Wolfhound, right?" Asked Jess, as she walked around the war machine looking up at the almost eight-meter-tall walking machine. It was an impressive looking machine. She knew that the mechs on her planet were in most ways better than this one on a ton for ton guide. It still was an impressive machine, when you're at its feet and looking up.

"I was with a merc unit hired on by the Combine. We had signed a three-year deal back in early 38, with "The Son". I had my 55ton Shadow Hawk blown out from under me, when the FedCom jump the border for what we thought was just an objective raid on the planet that we were hired to defend. We were a company plus of active mechs. Well, we were almost two companies strong of mechs, when we took that contract. I think the old man was looking forward to becoming a full Battalion, after our contract was up with "The Son". He had been juggling a number of deals, to get the numbers to look right on paper for over a year."

Don was lost in thought, and then his voice cracked a little. "By the end of the war? We were down to a single Mech lance, a tank lance, plus some odds and ends for support. The contract the boss signed said that they were supposed to replace any mech or tank lost in combat, with an equal machine as soon as the next supply shipment made it to a planet we were on. It took them almost two years, before they showed up with this mech. It was supposed to be my replacement for my 2H. They said to take it or leave it. The Boss was told that it was this one mech or another one like it. That was going to be the only replacements we would get. Just two light machines to make up for everything we had lost. They had been shortchanging us for the whole time that we were under contract, but it had been nickeling and dime kind of things. This was a whole new level of being hamstrung."

He was shaking his head as he relived those good(?) old days and he kept talking. "Right up until that day. it was nothing that big. We had heard rumors that every mercenary unit was getting the shaft in one way or another, even with the "new leadership" that they had been supposed to be working under. The Boss was upset, and I think he knew this was only the beginning of our troubles, just like we had been warned about before he had put his name on the dotted line. Somehow, he contacted a jumpship, which was also not happy about how they were being treated by the Combine. He made a plan, and with the help of a pair of fighter lances from another unit that had been dealing with the same kind of thing. We stole a modified Union dropship and blew our way off planet. We had to fight our way to our new ride out of that system. We hooked up with a merchant class jumpship, which just happened to be going our way and had an empty spot on her hull."

Don was now looking up at his machine talking, but not looking at anyone in his "home". He had a slight smile about something, he was not talking about. It was amazing how you can convince someone to look at things your way, when you have them under your dropships and four heavy fighters' guns. He did not want to sound like a pirate. There were very few people alive now who knew about that part of the story. Only the second in command and a few others had been interested in leaving the Combine, but that had been enough at the start.

"We knew that the Combine was not going to be happy with us, and we had been exchanging fire with the FedCom's units a few months prior on two different planets. The old Man did not think they would like to see us with our hat in our hands. We were running out of new places to go, and so that only left FWL or the Cappies as the only major player left to get a paycheck from. We ended up working our way to the FWL. We even got some help from one of the Wolf Dragoons regiments that the old man knew, to get out of the warzone. We did a few security jobs that we could find, but nothing that was paying the bills that well."

Don did not notice that his group of visitors were not saying a word. They wanted him to keep talking and he wanted to talk. "We split up from the jumpship while we were still in the FWL. They hooked up with a larger merc unit. One that was big enough that it could pay the maintenance, that the ship was overdue to have done. I don't blame them for leaving us, when they did. They did help us get in contact with MMM, before they hooked up and took off with their new friends and bill payers. MMM needed or wanted some more firepower out this way. It was hoped that it would stop some of the pirate activity, which had been popping up over the last decade. It was a nice six-month deal with an option to extend. It even came with a nice sized bonus, if we worked out."

Don looked over and up to Copeland. "That's where the guys are now. They are out hunting a pirate group, that raided an MMM convoy a few months ago. It's obvious that I could not go with them." Don was pointing at his chair, and he had a deep frown on his face and the smell of deep depression hung over him. There was no way he could pilot a mech with his injuries.

"So, why are you wanting to sell this?" asked Lora. Robert just tried not to cringe when she said that. She, like her mother and grandmother for that matter, always drove to the point. Even when it was not polite, to do something like that. As far as Robert knew, the whole family had a bad problem with their brain to mouth filter.

"That Shadow Hawk had been in my family for over 200 years. It was family, as much as a machine can be part of your family. I'm pretty sure one of the Combine recovery teams pulled my ride off the battlefield and fixed it back up. They did not return it to me, but I bet that they gave it to some Drak. I got this. Now it is newer and fully repaired, than my old ride. Only it's still not my old Hawk. I would have said it was new out of the factory, but I did find a few odd welds in the armor. Ones that could only have been done, while repairing armor plate outside of a factory facility. Those Combine units were getting old Star League machines like Mercury's, Thugs, Highlanders, and even a few Crabs. I saw them at a supply depot, once. I even saw them being used against the attacking FedCom's units. You think they would give me one, after I lost my girl? Never mind, you already know what they gave me."

Don let out a loud sigh. "I would have been happy with a Crab, even if it was lighter by five tons than my old bird. Instead? I get a light class mech that none of their mech jocks would have touched, because they could have the Panther or some old SLDF machine. That was the start of my problems. I was still mad as hell and I was not thinking, when I ran that hover car into a tree at full speed. Now I can't even drive this piece of junk anymore."

Don was looking at all of them now, but not really seeing them through his blood shot eyes. Robert now noticed that he was probably on some heavy pain killers, and lots of them. And it looked like he was chasing those pills by things, that you should not chase them with. He was on the fast track to an early grave.

"I broke my back in like three different places, and it paralyzed me from the waist down. The real joke of it? It's that they say, it is repairable. They have some great doctors out here on the edge of nowhere, but it takes money. It will take lots of money, to get the right kind of a doctor to fix me back up. Boss man wanted me to sign the mech over to them, after I was hurt. But my dad had in his contract, and it had been carried over to mine. That I get to keep my ride or any replacement, if it was lost in combat. So, I have the title for this little beast, all to myself. He was not happy, but what else can I do. It's the only asset that I have, that will give me the credits I need. When I heard that you had sold a jumpship and were looking for cargo? I figured that you would have the money to buy this, without me having to worry that you would stiff me somehow on a payment program. I know that you can sell mechs anywhere out here. At least on ones that do not have a mech factory on the planet. Then everyone wants a service agreement."

"Don. Do you mind if one of my techs checks out your mech?" asked the Captain. He had been listening to what the wreck of a human being had been saying, but he also had a job to do.

"Hoped you would bring one. There is a ladder on the other side of the mech and all of the manuals I could find are already in the cockpit waiting on him." Don pointed at Mike, the only person who was dressed like a working-class person and looked ready to go back to work again.

Mike nodded at the two men, and then walked around the mech. He found what he was looking for, and up the metal ladder to the cockpit he went. This left the two women and the Captain to talk with the crippled man on the ground floor of the home. Jess was trying to draw more information out of the man in the wheelchair. Maybe it was too friendly. Maybe she just needed to pump a new source of information. He had said that he had worked with the Wolf's Dragoons or had a few dealings with them. Then there was the fact that he had information about the Dracs having access to old Star League designs, and in numbers. That was coming as another shock to her brain.

Jess looked around the room. It was easy to see that this was the main living area. The building had a second level that would have been the main living area, normally. Getting to that level in a wheelchair? That would have required a lift of some kind, that did not seem to be present in this building. She started circling the large room and on all of the walls but one, was a mounted single shelf. On that one shelf were half meter tall copies of battlemechs. Each one was visibly different, in some way. She saw half a dozen different versions of the 70ton Archers. Most of the other machine's sculptures, she was not too sure of what the names were.

"So, Don? You like all kinds of mechs." She said but pointed to the shelf with the mechs on proud display.

Don looked to where she was pointing, and quickly thought he understood the why of the question. "I also try to find out everything that I can about a new mech, or a new version of a mech, that even might be coming out. I then try to make a scaled copy of it a smaller physical form. I have to do something to keep my mind busy. I also can sell some of them, at one of the local shops. All I have to pay, is the materials and my free time to make the things." He said with a smile at the woman, and a gave a slight shrug of his shoulders.

Jess nodded her head and changed the subject. "So, did you look into the history of this mech?" Jess asked pointing to the mech in the center of the house.

Now Don seemed to have a recharge of his energy level. Someone was asking about something he knew about, and it was not about his condition. "I did look into it."

He rolled over to the long shelf and pulled an off-white folder from its holder mounted below the model covered shelf. With the folder in his lap, he rolled back to the woman and passed it to her. "The problem with the Wolfhound, is that no government paid to have it developed. As near as I can tell. This one was produced in the Lyran Commonwealth by TharHes Industries, for "someone". There are no records of who bought it, or when it was first sold. It could have been the Kell's Hounds or one of the other known testing companies in that part of space. This one is an early production model, so it could have even been tested by Wolf's Dragoons for all anyone knows. There just is not that much information on it, that can be found by the average person. Let me show you what I have found on the thing."

Don rolled himself over to a Tri-Vid player and after only a few minutes, he started a documentary story about the mech design in question. While the four of them were watching the show, Mike was in heaven going over the mech with all the skill he had. After the talk with the Captain and his explaining of a few things, he was having the time of his life. How many people could say that they were checking out a machine that had never been seen by their people to date.

Several hours later, the show had ended, and Mike had completed his check out of the combat machine. After Mike had gone through the electronics and as many tests as he could, in the cockpit. He had started working his way down the mech. He was checking out all of the areas that were high wear or looked like they could be an issue if it had not been maintained. He was looking into the space around the ankle joint of the mech, when Robert asked if he was ready, or did he need more time to inspect the machine.

Mike slowly removed his hand from checking a fitting that was hard to reach. "Sir? I could always use more time for something like this, but I'm good. That is unless I can take it out to do some running and gunning with it?" He just needed a glance to know that his request was out of the question. "I'm done when every you are ready, sir."

"That sounds good Mike, let's go get some lunch and compare notes." Robert patted the younger man on the shoulder, and then turned and walked over to the wheelchair bound man. There was no way that he was going to talk business around anyone, that somehow might let them know what this small group might be doing.

"Don, I want to talk to my people in private and compare some notes." Robert could see that Don looked like he was let down by the news. He was thinking that they were not interested in buying the mech after all. Robert could read the man like a book.

"Lora has your contact information. You will know in less than 24 hours if were interested in the mech, or not. I like the way it looks. But I cannot buy a machine without knowing some more about it, and at least reviewing the local rules on buying something like this. I at least need to know what a fair price is, and what is going to be highway robbery." He put on a grin to take the sting out of the last few words.

Don was still let down that they were not going to make an offer on the machine. He had hoped that they would jump at the chance to buy it, and then he could get the surgery that might let him walk again. But there was still some light leaking in from the opening the officer had just given. "I understand, Captain. I look forward to hearing from you soon. I have listed her on the mech boards for sale. If someone else makes an offer first, the machine is there's." It was a hollow threat, but he did not know if these four, knew it or not.

The four people left the building and their hover car was moving to pick them up, before they had reached the side of the street and the door closed behind them. After a quick discussion on where to get some lunch and privacy, Lora suggested they go back to Le Chiffre. It was a light traffic day, but it still got heavier as they got closer to the Drop port. When they arrived at the Café? They did not have to wait for a table. They were seated on the second floor again, almost as soon as they entered the front door and checked in at the front desk. Robert looked around, and he thought this looked like the same table they had used before.

After being seated, Robert looked over to Lora. "You must eat here a lot. Is this the same table that we had our first meeting with you?" It was not an accusation, but it was a very pointed question, which also stated he wanted an answer.

Lora looked a little embarrassed by the comment. "Yes, to both. I grew up with the owner's wife, so they generally have a table set aside for me." She shrugged her shoulders. "Mom and I both hate to cook, so now I eat here, or I pick up some stuff that I can heat back up over a few days. This place is also known for its privacy for business deals. I'm not going to say that it is not bugged, but they do try to keep it as clean as they can. Any electronic bugs would not have been put in by the owners, but by some of the local power players."

"That is good to know. Since you know so much about this place. Why don't you order for all of us, if you would please?" Jess was nodding her head as Robert was talking. They had no complaints with their last meal, but it had been an eeny meeny miney mo on the menu.

Lora smiled back at Robert. "I can do that! I will be right back." She almost was skipping between the tables on the way to a set of double swinging doors.

When Lora got up from the table and took care of the food. This gave Robert and Jess a few minutes of quiet time to compare some notes on what they found out from Don. It was not like they were hiding anything from Lora, and they brought her up to speed when she returned from what might have been the kitchen of the restaurant. She was an asset, and that asset could only work, if they kept her in the loop about the things in her lane.

"Lora, as I was talking with Jess. I really want that mech. I think it fits with our orders of picking up anything interesting, that we could. Now if it was a design that fought in the House military's and has been around since before the SLDF left human space? I would have an idea on how much it was worth. This is your area, Lora. How much is it worth, on the high and low ends?"

Lora pulled out her briefcase and started flipping through a folder, until she found what she wanted. "Here you go, Robert". She passed over a copy of a sales flyer. "When I saw that message? I looked this up from my files at home. This one machine has a list price of about 2.9 million C-Bills straight from the factory. When you count the transportation cost and how rare mechs, are even on this planet. That makes them a little more expensive, than the list price. You could add up to twenty five percent more to the base price. That is if we were talking about a factory fresh unit, and at a showroom."

Robert turned a little, to look at the younger man. "Mike, you spent some time with the machine. How does it look, from your point of view?"

"I went over it as much as I could. I moved the arms and as you saw, I even walked in place. I also fired all the lasers in low powered training mode, and they all worked according to the read outs in the cockpit. I checked all the joints, and they all seem to have very little wear on them. I would say that they are almost new, well call it less than a few hundred hours on this set of joints. The armor package is intact, but I did see signs that it had been repaired. There are three areas of armor, that I think have been replaced, but it was done by a first-rate repair shop. I would call it a factory grade level of armor repair. It is as good a mech as you could expect, even if the tech is."

Mike paused and quickly looked around. He was not sure if he should finish that thought, but then when seeing Captain Robert shake his head in the affirmative, he continued. "It's tech is older than we are used to. I see no reason, not to see if we can acquire it. If it is not too expensive, that is. I like the whole head ejection system, and the all energy weapons layout makes it a good raider. Its specs say that it is not going to be that fast, but the speed is not that bad for its tech level."

The population of the SLDF in Exile was so small, that they were limited in the amount of home-grown designed fighting machines they could come up with. This new 35ton machine might be able to be modified and used in the fight against the clans or Cylons. Right now, they only had two new light mechs in mass production. The Sling II Omni at 25tons and the Mercury III Omni at 30tons. Besides those two light machines? They had two new medium mechs just now coming online. The medium class machines going to the first line units were 55ton Wolverine III Omni and 45ton Stag III Omnis. All of the Heavy mechs deployed were made up of a few short runs of some Golden Age clan machines. Rumor had it that a new 75ton machine was in the works, but those were only rumors. The big dogs that just were going into the heaviest ground units were 100ton Pulverizer II Omni and 80ton Riflemen III Omnis. All of those new designed machines were just modifications of the older designs to use Omni technology as their base.

The rest of the ground forces were made up of older and less capable machines to fill their ranks. Mostly they were a mix of Firefly C and SLE's, some old Slings, full sized Wolverines, Golden Age machines and a few Royal designs updated as they could with whatever weapons were available. The last were in active or stored until they were to be recycled or sold off. That last part had changed with the coming of the Cylons.

Mike was thinking, that all they needed to do was pop out the old engine and refit it with double heat sinks. Then they could dump the old school large laser for EERPPC, the medium lasers could be popped out for a set of third generation medium pulse lasers or extended ranged ones. It would be a zombie machine, which could take a pounding and still dish it out. The whole head ejection system could save dozens of lives. The suicide charge was a standard fit on SLDF in Exile machines. There was too much of a risk one of their people getting caught after a machine was disabled. If the rest of the SLDF machines had this whole head system? All they, the SLDF ground forces, would need to do is track the head down and then recover it. It would not save everyone, but it would save some of the highly trained pilots.

They did not continue with the discussion about the mech. They were interrupted by two strangers bringing over plates that were heaping with the most amazing smelling things, that three of them had ever smelled. After the wait staff had left to finish cleaning up after the lunch rush, the foursome dug into the food in a blur of moving forks. It was several minutes before anyone was willing to talk again.

"Lora. I don't know what this is, but it is amazingly good." Where the mumbled words coming from Jess as she tried to talk and chew at the same time. She had more or less failed at both, but only just. Mike did not even try to talk. He just nodded his head with a mouth full of food, after he had worked out what she had said. Some of that food was still hanging out of his mouth and dripping down the front of his work jumpsuit. He could careless for the mess.

"They are supposed to be a French restaurant, but I like the Latin style better." It was Lora's turn to talk with a mouth full of half eaten food. This got Jess and Mike giggling a little.

Robert looked around at the group and made sure to swallow his food before he tried talking. "Lora, I can see why you like this place. I think I will let you take care of ordering the food from now on, if you don't mind. This is a nice change of pace from the fish meals that I'm used to. Now Jess. How do you vote on the Wolfhound 35ton light mech with its laser-based weapons?" The last part, he had read off of the sheet of paper that Lora had passed him that advertised the war machine.

Jess did not even look up from her food when she started talking. "I think it would be worthwhile to pick up. The R and D teams will wet themselves on a chance to see what is going on in this part of space." That was as close as she was going to say about her home. After all, the Cappies would have loved to have had let their R and D teams' loose on the light mech as well.

"Then that settles it. Lora, after we finish this great food. Please contact Don and tell him that we would like to come by tomorrow and workout a price for his machine. I also would like a mech hauler on stand-by, to bring it back to the Drop port as soon as we close the deal with him. I think we will see how much he wants for payment, then work on it from there. Paying full price plus a few percent extra, is okay with me. I think Don needs the money bad enough, that he will take a good and honest first offer. Lora what are the rules for paying for something that large, in cash?"

Lora looked up from her food, then reached over to her Noteputor and started to look for the information she needed. "I just wanted to refresh my memory, but it is up to the person selling the merchandise to claim it on their end of year taxes. That is unless they are a business. Don will have to take care of it, but I don't think he will be on the planet long after you take that mech off his hands to file any taxes."

She stopped talking for a minute and was reading intently, before she continued. "Speaking of going off planet? We have a message from MMM. They would like to know what our trading route will be. They made a point of wanting to know, if you are going to make system fall in the Canopus V area anytime soon. They would like to talk about you hauling a high value cargo to Canopus, for them. I would bet that it's some Shadow Hawks mechs, and maybe a few Pike tanks. You have an armed jumpship, a Leo CV, and a Blockade Runner. It makes since and cents for them, because they would not have to pay for an escort on that run of cargo."

Robert drummed his finger on the tabletop, as he pictured the local space in his mind and worked out different routes. "I was not planning to go to Canopus V, yet. Its five jumps from here. That stop was going to be on our second run, if this one worked out."

Jess shot Robert a look, that was not nice. It said she was not happy with Robert telling this person, that they were going to make a second run. Something like that information, might let Lora know more than she should. Operation security was a major driving point on all of the previous supply runs. SLIC was a firm believer in the old saying, "that you could not tell anyone what you do not know in the first place."

Robert saw the look, but he did not let the look affect him in the least. He turned just a little bit, just to show Jess that he was talking "at" her. "I was going to see what I could find here, to fill out what the Boss said she needed. Then use someone from the Families to see where I might need to go to find the rest of it and top off my cargo bays. We were going to keep going until we had full cargo holds, and then return home."

Lora looked quickly between Captain Copeland and Jess. She noticed the by play but she could not put her finger on what it meant, just yet. When Robert stopped talking and Jess had not added anything. Lora decided to break the silence. "I would recommend that you not go to Canopus, yet. I think we can find other locations, that would fill your needs on this trip. That would give me more time to contact someone on Canopus V, and it most likely would take more than a single message. They could set everything up, before you got there. If you can? Before you leave, please let me know what you plan to trade on any return trip. If it is another jumpship? Any advanced notice would be great, but the more time I have to work with would be better. I was kind of worried that you might have to sit on the Scout for a few months, before anyone could come up with the capital to buy it. There are very few people on the planet that are sitting on a quarter billion C-bills that are not being used somewhere else."

Lora looked around the table but from the blank look coming from Mike, she quickly focused on Jess and Robert. Lora got the feeling that she crossed a line into something, she was not supposed to know about. But she needed to know somethings, if she was supposed to do her job effectively. She always wanted to do any job the best that she could, and to do that? she needed some information that it seemed their employers were not willing to give her.

"Lora, you know that operational security is the keystone of our people. And I think that, that part of your training was covered before Beth died. I will have to think about it, before I will let you know any information like that." Robert had stopped eating and was looking Lora dead in the eyes, but his head was tilted slightly down. This made is eyes look like they were cannon tubes, and they were locked onto her.

"I understand, Captain. I need to let the people over at MMM know something? What should I say?" Lora backed off, some. If Copeland wanted to play it that close to the vest, then that was his call to make. It would just limit the deals that she could make, or any discounts that might be lying about only known to the right people. Maybe money did not matter that much to this man. She had dealt with more than a few micromanagers, in her career. She also knew deep down that she would have to work with that type of person again.

Robert looked around the table, and all eyes were on him. _"Well this is why I get paid the big C-Bills, and why I'm the boss_ ".

Robert went into command mode. "Tell them. That we are heading towards the FWL via the shortest path to pay off our partners, and that we are only buying cargos. We are not interested in setting up any charter deliveries, at this time. If they push? Then just tell them you don't know where we are going. Say that maybe we are just a small company, and we do not want any others to know what our plans might be. This is true, and if they don't like it? Well to bad for them." Jess was nodding her head as Robert talked.

Lora looked down at her noteputor and worked on it with her fingers sliding across the screen for a few minutes, before she started typing on the screen vigorously. She only stopped her typing to take a few bits of food that had been left on her plate, till she was done. When she was done? She looked up from her screen.

"Okay I sent a message with what you said. That should let them down easy. I added some verbiage to cover any political issues your plans might cause." She was glad, when she saw that both Robert and Jess nodded and even seemed to relax a bit. It looked like she had avoided some unmarked minefield before she had made it too far into the damn thing.

It was quiet again as the four people went back to eating the food in front of them. Just as they each were finishing the meal, but before the plates were picked up. Lora's noteputor made a buzzing sound, and she looked down at the header information on the incoming messages. This slight noise caused by the device had drawn all of the eyes at the table to her.

"Well that was fast." She looked over at Robert and opened the message. "That was from the head of the Sales department for MMM on the planet. That was not who I sent the message to, about your upcoming travels. This is from a midlevel sales rep. They said that they have two runs of Martel 5 Medium Class lasers, that they are now overstocked with. They would like to sell them to you."

Lora looked up from her device. Then picked it up so that she could read and look at her boss at the same time. "Robert a full production run for Martel's is about 25 weapons. And it does not matter if they are small, medium or 90mm large bore gamma lasers. So, you're looking at fifty laser weapons of that size. What would you like me to tell them? She also said that they have re-viewed our wish list of items. They would like to send an invitation to you, to come to their main outlet store. Which you can use at your convenience. Someone must really like you, Sir." Lora's eyes got big as she finished reading the message.

Robert about choked, on the last bite of bread. What could they do with fifty medium class lasers systems straight from the manufacture? That would go a long way to finishing arming the last of the Viper MK VII's that the Colonial Navy were flying when he left New Circe. That is, if that many weapons did not complete the needed installations. It also might let the Colonial Supply System to start getting a bit of a stockpile as replacements for the Colonial Navy. Now, all they needed to do was find about fifty more. That would fill the whole number on the wish list, that Commander Xi had given him. The list that Robert had given Lora to put out, had that they wanted "A shipment" of that type of weapon in a short list of different styles.

Robert smiled, after he got his face under something close to control. "It seems like MMM would like to get some of their money back, before we leave. I would like to take care of this as quickly as we can." He looked around the table before continuing. "Do we think we can head over to the show room today? We don't have the money in the bank, yet. But if we can find out what they have on hand? Then all we should need to do, is transfer the funds and have them drop off what we find and like at the dropships." Robert knew that he was making it sound easy, and he knew that it was going to be anything but easy.

Jess was the first to say anything. "That sounds like a plan, Captain. The longer were here? The easier it will be for someone to start looking closer, than I would like, at us." Even Mike was shaking his head in agreement to this statement. Pirates were well known to be in this area of space. Someone robbing a grounded dropship was not an every month type of an event, but it was close. More to the point, it often looked that way.

"Well, Mike? It seems like you will have a lot more to do on this trip, than you thought. Lora how long do you think we have, before the car is ready to pick us up? I want to contact the ships to see how things are going, before we head out on another task."

The job of the senior officer never ends. You must have so many balls in the air at any one time? That you ought to be in a circus act, before you are allowed to take on a major command. _"This is a very tiring job,"_ thought Robert. _"I need to call it an early night tonight"_.

Lora was looking down at the computer, while Robert was talking. She did not hear what he had been talking about. "Sorry, Robert. I was sending a message back to Don. He was online, and he replied as soon as it was sent. He would not mind if we came by at the same time tomorrow, to discuss a price for his mech. The MMM Sale's floor just opened an hour ago. We can show up anytime, that works for us. Their policy is that they just like it better if you call ahead, so that they can do a credit check on any visitor. That is something you do not have to worry about, Sir." Lora had a full smile on her face. This was the first client she had worked for, that could claim that price was not an issue.

Robert repeated what he had said. A very embarrassed Lora told him that the driver should be on the street probably, or in a parking area at the end of the block. They could leave whenever they needed to. Robert asked about the cost of these types of services. He was worried that they might be wasting money on what was an extravagance, in his eyes. Lora had to explain, in some detail, that the exchange rate between the C-Bill and what the locals used as a currency. This meant that they would only spend about ten C-Bills a day for this door to door and on call drivers service. Robert was okay with that bill.

Robert pulled out a small communication device from his pocket and walked to a quiet spot on the floor. He stopped by a big window that looked down onto the front entrance to the building. The device was the size of a pack of cards, and they came in many different colors. This one was a dull silver color, with the Tramp class jumpships name printed on two sides of the device in thick blood red letters. It was a secure short-range push to talk radio, that was very cutting edge. It had a range of a little over 20km but was perfect for the ship's crew to use, while in town. ComStar would not know about them or how to decrypt the messages sent from them. The trick was not to do things that would cause ComStar to look for them. They should be able to cover the range out to the distances that the crew and teams would be traveling from the dropship, while looking for the things on the wish list that they were supposed to buy. It they were going much farther away from the drop port? They had a larger older Star League military spec radio they would have taken with them.

Robert used the personal communication device to contact the bridge of the Maru and the White Rabbit. Both ships reported, that they had no major issues to report to the mission commander. They did report that all of the morning teams were still out, and the first groups of people on R and R had just left the first ship a few hours ago.

Captain Roberts spent about ten minutes talking with each of the two dropship commanders. He updated them both, that he planned to go to the MMM showroom, before coming back to the Drop port. He asked the Captain of the White Rabbit to contact the ships at the jump point. He wanted to see how they were doing, and if they needed to report anything. Robert was developing an itch that he could not explain. He was hoping that this little talk and his leading questions, would prod the other Captains to be a little more aware of what was going on around them.

When he was done Robert returned to the dining table? He was just in time for an after-lunch drink of some of the best coffee he had in recent memory. After everyone had relaxed a little and the food was allowed to settle, it was time to get back to work. They were all reluctant to leave the Café, but there was work that still needed to be done. Lora had called ahead, and the car was waiting outside of the Cafe' for them when they exited the front door.

The drive to the MMM Showroom was not that long. It was centrally located in this city for any visitor to this planet to see. As you would expect, it was closer to the Drop port than to anywhere else that was a point of interest. After all, the drop port was the expected source of their prospective clients. It was a large 8 story tall heavy constructed building, but it only had two rows of windows on its tall walls.

The showroom did not have a very nice looking front, it should have been called a warehouse, and not a showroom. The thing was, people did not spend a million C-Bills at a warehouse. After dropping off the four travelers the sedan drove into an underground parking deck to keep it close, but out of sight by any unwanted individuals. It was expected. That people, who did have a million C-bills to spend, did not want others to know they were there.

Notes.

 **How do you support a one-off machine, when the only production that had ever been made is on the other side of the Inner Sphere**? Besides I always had a soft spot for the Wolfhound. It has a few ideas that even the Clan did not think about. At least not until they ran into one in 3049.

 **How and where, would a down on his luck pilot keep his machine?** I just took what I saw from one of the gear heads down the road and worked from there.

 **Maintaining and working on strict OpSec** , is like walking a fine line with landmines on either side.

Next is how do the big boys do sales, but not to the government or to the larger units? That is going to be "The Show Room".


	13. Chapter 13 late 14 Dec 3046

**Chapter 13**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **Late on 14 Dec 3046**

 **The Dunianshire system**

 **Shopping spree.**

The group of four entered the massive building, that was kind of a warehouse and a showroom all in one. It was for MMM, the largest producer of military weapons for this political group on the edge of settled space. As soon as they had entered the main doors of the facility. They could tell, that this was not just a run of the mill warehouse. It was also a major defense point, for some very big opponents. The building was complete with very thick walls, armored glass, and with heavy armored shutters to close off the building from any unwanted accessors. Those were only the defensive points, that were clearly visible to the naked eye. Robert made a mental bet that the building also had its own power supply to power those hidden weapons.

The building was so bright inside. That the group did not have to wait for their eyes to adjust to the inside space, from the bright outside sun light. If it had been cloudy or if the sun had gone down? They might have been blinded by the bright lights from the ceiling or from the light reflecting off all of the shiny surfaces that surrounded them, as they first entered the building.

The entry way was large. But not overly so with a receptionist manning a tall, massive, shiny and maybe wood looking desk. It was set dead center of the two doors that allowed access to the building from the outside world. It was instantly obvious that the massive desk was set up to control access to the main building, and to the showroom behind the office workspace and reception area. The group of visitors only had to wait for a few minutes, after identifying themselves on who they were, to the gate keeper. Soon after that a sales representative was fast walking in her high heels. She was heading toward the group from a side office down an internal corridor that was half hidden from the waiting area.

Drawn by the clicking of heals on the reflective floor, Robert saw her coming and thought she might be heading for them. As soon as he thought that, but before he could alert the rest of his team. Her actions took that need out of his hands. That was when, he saw that she slowed down a little to catch her breath. She carefully straightens her expensive suit, before closing the last few meters of open floor to them. She introduced herself as Dawn, and that she would be showing them around the Show Room today.

With a flourish of her right arm she pointed to a set of doors behind the massive desk. As soon as the thick, and maybe armored opaque glass doors opened. There was a massive change to their surroundings, again. It was a massive area, once they were past the entry way. Robert stopped counting the mechs on display, when he hit 24 of them in the large open area that was separated from the waiting room. And those were the only ones that he had a line of sight with, after entering the main showroom area. He was betting that there were some smaller ones being blocked by their larger brothers.

While Robert looked around, he was wondering what stopped any pirates from raiding this building. Two whole companies of battlemechs, just sitting around? That would be a lucrative target even this long after the 4th SW. Then Robert notices one of the mechs move just a little bit. It was not much of a movement. It was just like someone adjusting in their seat while they were sitting in the cockpit.

With this one clue, in his mind. Robert looked closer at the first mech. It was a rebuilt Atlas assault mech. Now he could tell that there was someone in the cockpit of the mech. The pilot did not wave or anything, but the pilots were busted, and they knew it. Robert had to smile. _"That would stop anyone from getting any ideas of shop lifting, with having about twenty-four manned and operational mechs in the mix to stop them. I bet they are most likely crewed by the MMM security unit or a specially hired mercenary unit"_.

The first two mechs in the show area, were the massive Atlas and an equally impressive Awesome class machine. The slightly smaller unit was standing not that far from the 100ton machine, as gate guards. Both of the rebuilt machines were marked, as being for sale, but they did not list how much they might cost. The sales rep went into detail about each. She had started with the more massive machine, and now that it was revealed to be manned. She took advantage of the sharp-eyed visitor. This included giving the mech pilots orders to move their arms or twist to show off the massive machines in different poses. Then she had the slightly smaller Awesome go through the same motions as she had the Atlas. Seeing that the group was not interested in the massively expensive machines, she went down the line to the next machine on display.

Next in line were two types of new built Marauders, a 3R and a 3M. Robert had seen this type of machine before, so he was not interested in these oddly shaped mechs. Next to be seen, after the pair of Marauders, where four new locally built Shadow Hawks. Each one was described as a different version, of that very old design. One of the versions had the jump jets removed in favor of mounting both heavier armor and more weapons. Next they were shown a Stinger, a Wasp, and two versions of the Locust light mech. The sales rep was a little let down that the VIP group she was showing around, did not seem to be really looking at buying combat mechs.

Those machines were the center of the showroom's whole display area. It was also the focus of how the MMM's sales department used for the determination of promotions and bonuses. She had only just been told, that this group had a lot of money. Money which the leadership of her company wanted to take as much of, as they could legally take off of their hands. She had been told, in no uncertain terms. That she was to sell them anything they wanted, just as long as they spent money. Also, strangely, she had a last-minute note from someone over in the main corporate building. They wanted her to see, if she could find out everything they might have for sale in return. She had almost missed a step when that note had been sent to her as she walked over to meet the VIP's. This was The Showroom. They did not normally "buy" anything. Very rarely did they even deal with trade ins. That was a whole different division of the company, and they were normally handled at the drop port. The show room was for sales.

Now, they were all the way back against the back wall of the massive building. She was now showing them the ground combat vehicles that were built by MMM. If someone was not interested in battlemechs, then they should be interested in ground combat vehicles. Against the back wall was a pair of long rows of death. They were made up of tracked LRM and SRM Carriers, Po, Manticore tanks and Pike support vehicles. The group of outsiders looked at each one and listens to her go about her sales pitch. But she could tell that they wanted to move on to the next display. Interspaced between the real-life weapons were images of examples of items that MMM could acquire, if they were given enough lead time and a graduated service fee. These "displays" also did not get any higher interest than the real displays had from the small group.

Dawn's superb selling sense told her that the only thing that had grabbed the group's attention, had been the Sabre aero fighter. That alone had told her. That they had money, that they wanted to spend today. If only she could find out, what they wanted to spend that money on. Dawn was about to start freaking out. She kept those feelings hidden away in one small corner of her brain, and it would not show on her face or in her very controlled body language.

If they walked out, without showing any interest, and or not buying any of the high-ticket weapons? She might lose her nice paying job, as soon as they got into their taxi. That is when it hit her. She was showing and not asking, what they would like to see. Now she had to figure out how to save the situation she had found herself, hip deep into. She spun around on her expensive high heels and faces the group of four off worlders.

"So, that concludes the normal tour. Is there something you're interested in, that we do not have on the main floor of the Show Room?" She was keeping her face plastered with a salesperson smile, but her hands were behind her back to keep them hidden.

Robert had been taking mental notes during the whole song and dance being put on by Dawn. But besides the Fighter? He was wondering if this was a waste of time, or not. The Fighter was nice, and with the Colonial Navy now fielding the Royal version of that craft. They were the same type that they found, when they recovered the carrier Kaga.

It might have been worth picking up a few, if they could be modified up to the Royal level weapons tech with ease. The down sides? It was that the fighter would have to be stripped down to the frame and rebuilt with current technology from the hull out. Robert knew that was not going to be cheap or easy to do. That is why Robert thought they would take a pass, on even the little fighter. Fighters were not on his list to take back home, and they were only borderline "interesting". He was not going to spend that kind of money on borderline.

Robert would write down those notes about it and pass it along to his boss, when they got back to New Circe. Someone with a higher pay grade might just decide to put in a request to get some, on the next run. Then again, they might just toss those notes in the waste bin and move on to other maybe greener pastures. Then again, the grass is always greener over the septic tank.

"Dawn. Your showroom is most impressive, but it does not really have what we need. Where we are scheduled to stop over, at least for the next few months have different needs than I think you are used to filling. I am not in the mood to compete against larger importers." Robert waved to point to the whole show room that was around him. "What you have shown us, is not really what we are looking for. Did someone not pass you the list of things, that my group is looking to acquire as cargo?" The tone of voice carried his confusion.

Robert was looking right at Dawn, and from the look on her face? She had not been given much of a brief on what Copeland Supply was looking to buy today. He could see flashes of anger between attempts to conceal her confusion. This was only causing more anger flashes to be drawn to the surface of her face. Robert had to fight down a smile, at seeing the rapidly changing color of her skin. It would seem, that someone had been playing interoffice games again. _"I bet she is going to pay someone back in a big way._ "

"I take it, you were not told." Robert bit his lower lip. You would expect better inter office communications, for something that has been around as long as MMM had been. "Dawn where we are going, is off the beaten path. What we are looking at? Is picking up tools, construction equipment, and other things along those same lines."

Robert passed his noteputor over, so she could see the full list that they had posted on this planet's worldwide information net. They had done that posting so that everyone would know what they were looking for. This was hoped to stop any unwanted contact and speed up there shopping time needed to fill the dropships' cargo bays. It would seem, that it had not worked as well as Robert had hoped. But it did cut down on unwanted contact, somewhat. It was just too bad, that this sales rep. had not seen it.

Dawn was looking at the list on the offered electronic device. She was furious about not being told about this list. She had just wasted a lot of time, and she could have very well lost this client. She quickly reviewed the list with a little more attention than the first glance. She noted that it was strange, they did not want any mechs or tanks. Everyone wanted mechs. Battlemechs had always been a sellers' market in living memory of anyone working for MMM. There were always people that wanted one, even if they did not have the money to buy one. As she looked down the list again. She was not really looking that close. She was getting a feel for what they were looking for. She was going down the mental list of things, that she knew The Showroom had in the back room that might fit what he had told her.

"Sir? We normally do not carry this type of merchandise on the main floor. How about, we all go out to the outside park and see what we have out there that you might like." She raised one of her arms and pointed to a side door on the far side of the building from their current location. She had no idea what was all back there. If she had been given that list, before she had started her routine? She would have known everything that was back there, by heart. She was thinking about how she was going to make whoever set her up today, pay. As they exited the building, she was picturing sporks and sensitive organs.

The "Outside Park" had a very different feel then the clean and climate controlled "The Showroom", which they had just left. Everything in there had been clean, neat, and if not new. Then they all had been freshly rebuilt to a high quality. It was that or the tape and bailing wire was carefully covered. The outside area was a lot dirtier and grittier, on all levels. Some of the outside displays even had unrepaired visible damage on them. Some of the displays even looked like they would need major repairs, before they could move off the lot under their own power. Robert thought that these machines were sold as is, and with a "buyer beware" sign posted in the cockpit of each one. Those signs were not there by company policy, but they would have been left there by the last pilots. All without MMM knowing about it, they hoped. The group passed all of these war machines and kept walking around the area closest to the door.

Robert was a little surprised, but in a good way, that Dawn kept right on walking passed the damaged war machines. She was making small talk as she walked, but nothing that was related to the walking or other more conventional motive systems, that they were passing. They were getting close to the end of the open lot, at a steady pace. Robert could see the wall and gate that allowed secure entry and exit to the facility between some almost hulks, after a few minutes of walking. Robert was again starting to think that this might have been a waste of time. If he did not want new or rebuilt machines, why would he want wrecks?

Dawn turned around just as they passed a mostly wrecked Scorpion tank, which had its turret hanging off to one side of the tank's main hull. There were still a dozen holes in the hull, and it still smelled of smoke. "This is our workmech area. This is not all of them. We rent out a lot of the machines by the day, week, month, or even by the year. If you're a local company, and in good standing with MMM? We will work with them on a rent to own program. We have even been known to lend them, for free, after a disaster or major raid to certain groups to help with the rebuilding or other recovery efforts."

This area is even dirtier, then the area by the entrance to the Show Room had been. Dawn was thinking, _"I have got to sell them something, or I'm so gone"._ She looked down at her own Noteputor and then started up again with "The Pitch". This was not her normal area, but she had a good bit of information on her device to help her.

"We have two Rock Hound mining mechs, one Rock Otter, and one Dig Lord. Plus, we have four Power loaders on hand, right at the moment. There are more of the Power loaders, but they are being used at the Drop port for a short-term contract. If you would like to see them? We can have you dropped off, at the end of their work shifts later today." She was flipping through screens faster than she was talking.

She was walking around a tall wall that might have been part of a storage and wash rack, but it had empty slots that looked to have seen recent use. As the group followed, the quartet saw more machines standing in the hot sun over their heads. "As you can see, we also have four carbine construction mechs, which will be returning tonight. Last, but not least, we have three 30ton class logger mechs." With the last statement she turned and faced the group again. She had a smile on her face, but it was a little strained. She was out of cards, and she knew it. "So, is this more in line with what you were looking for?" Her voice now had an almost desperate undertone to it that contradicted her smile. She was hoping to find a way to stay in the game.

Robert and the rest of the group were looking around at the mass of machinery. Robert had a tight lip look on his face, but inside he was happy. Robert did a turn and gave some quick orders to his group. "Mike, Jess why don't you start over there and check them out. You all know what we are looking for."

Robert could tell that Dawn was not getting it, so he turned and looked right at her as the other two went to the first two machines. "We will be taking only the machines, that we think are up to our operational standard."

Mike and Jess had already walked up to the first machine, it was one of the Logger mechs. He gave the sales rep one of his patented half smile. "Now Dawn! This is more like it! I think that we will be taking a few of these machines off your hands. That is, as soon as MMM comes through on their end of the deal. The one that we made before we got here, with Mr. McDonogh."

Robert even let the smile reach his eyes. He was not dropping a dime. He was dropping a manhole cover, and he kind of liked doing it. Robert had hoped to be able to pick up three or four workmechs on this planet. He had been surprised at the numbers of machines on display, even on a major world.

Dawn was trying to be sly, but both Lora and Robert caught the hand movement the woman had just made. What she had done, was just tapped the top corner of the screen on the noteputor in her other hand. She had done it, just as she had been told to do. That is if this group had decided to make a purchase at the Show Room today. The two visitors did not say anything. They just let the motion go so that it had seemed as it had been unnoticed, as if they were just three people watching two others checking out the tall walking machines.

The other two were, first checking the logs of each machines. Then Mike would climb the ladder and run the checks inside of the cockpit. Jess would remain on the ground doing more studying of the historic operational logs. It should have taken an hour to do each of the machines, but these machines were set up for review. It also helped that the two people were working on this task, and not the one person that was normally given the job. They were making good time, even if they were being thorough at the tasks. The pair knew that if they missed anything major. That they would hear about it when they got back home, and for many years to come.

Jess and Mike had completed the review of four of the machines, when Lora's noteputor buzzed for her attention. When she looked down to read the message, Robert casually shifted position so he could read over her shoulder. It was a bad angle, so Lora gave him a look before answering his unasked question. "Well, Robert. All of the money will be in the bank, by Close of Business today. We can draw on the funds right now, if you want and it would be perfectly legal. A fifth just hit your escrow accounts and the next fifth should be cleared for transfer by the top of the hour. This is normal when they have to shift a large number of C-bills between banks."

What Lora did not need to say, was that both of her fees had already been pulled from the accounts, before he could spend a cent of it. That still left a little over two hundred and forty million C-Bills for Robert to try to spend down, maybe even before they left the system. You have to admit. That is a problem a lot of people would love to have, at least once or twice in their lives.

"Well, that is good to hear. That means we can pay for some of these toys, that those two are looking at. Lora, can you please send a message back to the Maru for me? They can now forward a message to the Styx. That they can begin their shopping trip whenever they want to. You can also post the full list." Robert had pitched his voice just loud enough for the sells person to hear him. He thought that he knew the reason for the delay in the funds transfer. Someone in MMM wanted to make sure they got a chance to get some of their money back. This little speech had been worked out before they had left the restaurant.

The two of them had been waiting to send that message for hours, and it felt like they had been waiting for days. The Styx would now start actively asking around for a special list of key parts, which would fit a Merchant class jumpship. It was up to Jules to buy what he thought would be useful for their cover story and could be useful back in New Circe at the same time. If he did not buy anything? That was okay. The key was to get the cover story out, to as broad an audience as possible. This started the clock ticking about letting Lora know about the possible next mission. It should not take someone with her contacts that long, to find out about the questions being asked about certain jumpship parts. Then there would be the pointed questions, that were going to be asked by her.

Robert knew the Sales Rep had heard what he had asked, and he would bet that it would be passed along to her superiors later. Now that he was looking at her. He realized Dawn was being underutilized for the amount of money he was going to be spending, and he was hot. "Dawn, can you have someone bring out some drinks for my people." She nodded and went back to her thin computer that was still held so tightly in her left hand, that her knuckles were white.

Jess and Mike were setting at the foot of one of the Machines taking a break and talking. Robert did not know what they were talking about, from where he was standing. The three other people had already moved to a sitting area, which had a small selection of cheap lawn furniture. That did not mean that it was not nice, and it just happened to be out of the sun as well as comfortable. The pair had been going at it for two hours, but they still had four more machines to check out, before they were done. The four machines that were due to come in, had come in. It had been while the duo was finishing up checking on the last Rock Hound mining and prospecting mechs. Robert could feel the let down from the pair from his place in the shade, when those four machines came marching through the gate. It was like getting hit in the face with a fish.

Robert had walked over a few times, to see how things were going with the pair. Mainly it was just to chat with them, and to let them know that it was okay to take their time and do a good job. He also wanted to know about a few other of the machines, but he did not want the sales rep to know. So far, all the machines they had looked at, had checked out. They told him, was that so far. All they really needed was a good cleaning, before being stored in the cargo bay of a dropship to be taken off planet. Well that, and a ride back to get them all safely back to New Circe. The last part was not said aloud, but it was hinted at with head and eye movement.

A few minutes later, a guy in a food vender's outfit pushed a two wheeled cart over to the two people sitting on the mechs legs catching their breath. This was his second time today, for it to have stop by them. The pair knew that they had to be done as quickly as they could, so that they could get back to the dropship for the next meeting. They also knew, that if they picked up what was referred to as "a lemon" for some unknown reason? But it was known to come from the days before space travel. It would reflect badly on them, when it was found out. They could always come back to this place, if the Captain decided that it was taking too long today. The time to find out that you have a bad machine, was not when you were over 1400 light years from where you bought the now useless machine. Enough things would break, before they got back home.

After servicing the two people out by the massive machines, the cart started moving again. Then the cart came to the three people sitting around a heavy backyard table. This was where Robert noticed something odd about the cart, for the first time. On one side of the cart was a selection of about two dozen hard back books mounted in shelves on the side of the cart. Robert was distracted from the books, when the vender asked what cold drinks they would like to have. They all got up to see what was offered in the ice and glass bottled filled center void, of the three wheeled electric drink cart. It was a wide range of drinks that would fit any time of day, or night for that matter. Not for the second time Robert was glad that they had landed on a planet that English was the common language, unlike on some of the Drac or Cappie controlled worlds. Here he did not need a translator for every little thing to know what he was buying

The two other ladies ordered a pair of fruit flavored drinks, and while the operator was taking care of them. Robert looked down at the books on display. All were thick, heavy and made of paper, there was not a single electronic book on display. He was reading the titles but was having a hard time understanding some of them. A lot of them were written in languages that Robert did not understand, or even could identify the letters that they were written in. That was until he reached the end of the first row of books on the three wheeled cart.

That book was clearly titled. "The Complete Guide to Warfighting Machines of 3044." It was a massive book, like one's that would be put out on a coffee table back home and never moved again. It would have some very detailed images and as much information, the best that was available to the writers at the time it was last edited. So, it should be one step below what the spies of the major houses might know about the subject covered with in its hard outer covers.

Robert looked up from the books and made eye contact with the vender. "Do you mind if I take a look at this book?" He had no idea what the rules were, and he was treading very carefully. Maybe a little too carefully, but it beats going to jail for doing something dumb. Because something like that had happened before, and it was most likely going to happen again on this trip.

Before the mobile drink vender could say anything. Dawn interrupted him first, her tone was odd but light. "Those are for our patrons. It's so they can compare our offered machines against any other known machine. It also should help compare ones that they might know about but can only vaguely remember something about. It sort of the light reading for, while….. Well like we are now, waiting for the techs to get done doing any inspections or tests on the prospective machines."

Robert selected the book and asked for the same drink the women had, and then pulled the heavy book off the shelf. He spent the next hour or so flipping through the mix of full color, black and white photos, and text filled pages. He was so into the hard-backed book? That he did not notice that Mike and Jess had walked back up, to rejoin the group. Robert was a little startled when one of them set and empty glass bottle on the table right beside him.

"If you would like a copy? I can also add a copy as a comp, if you want to pay for an upgrade to the threat computer and have one of the Rock Hounds outfitted to hold it. That is, if you choose to buy one of them?" This was said by Dawn, as she gave Robert a sly little smile from across the table in the fading sunlight. "If not? I think you can pick up a copy at one of the major bookstores on planet. I don't know how much they cost, but it is probably about a hundred C-Bills or so for a digital or physical copy." She finished with a shrug of her shoulders. She still did not know if they were going to write a check today, or not. They looked like they were, but she had seen this before. At the last minute they could back out after spending most of a day of her time. If they came back tomorrow someone else might cherry pick them, unless one of them asked for her by name.

Robert looked left and right, and after seeing that all of his people were nearby. "Dawn, if you would give us some private time? I need to get a back brief from my people." The Sales rep was already rising from the table as soon as Robert started talking. It was a habit that had developed, over years of sales that had not started with her working for MMM. The trick was to know when a group needed some privacy to talk about how much money they were about to drop in this office. Or it could be that they were not interested in what was offered, and they were about to leave. It was just one more step in going down the sale's road.

Mike was the first one to talk, because Jess was distracted by an image of a mech in the huge open book, which Robert had been looking at when they had walked up. The image of a 100ton KGC-0000 or as it was more widely known King Crab, and it had a way of doing that to people. Mike did not even notice that Jess was distracted. "I checked all the industrial machines, which they have out here. They all are used, some more than others, but all are in working order and well maintained. I did not fire the Short-Ranged Missile system on the Rock Hounds, but they did pass all of the fire control self-tests, that I could run on them. I say they are good to go, unless Jess found something in the logbooks that I did not see during my check outs."

Now Mike was looking at the other woman. He was waiting for her to say something now that it was her turn to have input to this part of the mission. He had no idea what she was supposed to do out here in the mech yard. He just knew that she was part of the command staff for the whole mission. That was good enough for him to not to want to ask to many questions.

It took a few moments for it to reach Jess, that they were waiting on her for input on the mechs they had been looking at all afternoon. "Ohh yes! I went through all of the logs, and unless they are very good fakes? They checked out. MMM has been renting them out for about ten years or more. The number of rental years is depending on the machine. All the services have been completed and notes have been made, some notes are more detailed than others that were put in their logbooks. I saw that some notes have been made where about when something major needed to be replaced, along with dates of the replacement. I agree, all are worth purchasing and would help back home. That is if they don't want too much per machine. They are used, to well-used level of condition, after all.

Robert was lost in thought, and then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his push to talk radio. Now that he did not "need" to be overheard. He could use his own communications device. "Maru, this is Copeland. We are going to be late. Please let everyone else know, about the change of plans. We just will catch everyone up at the next meeting. I want to have one at 0900, tomorrow. If it's important? They can contact me on this thing or wait till we get back to the drop port sometime later tonight."

Robert waited for a few moments listening to the ear bud before continuing. "Okay tell Jules that he has a ten million C-Bill budget. If he needs more than that? Then he needs to let me know, before he offers that kind of money on something big." It would seem, that something at the space station had attracted his attention and Robert was wondering what it might be. Then he remembers, that with Jules? Well you never knew, until it was in the cargo bays. And sometimes you did not know until that cargo bay was fully unloaded.

Robert put the comm away and looked at the little group around him. He had a sly little smile that he made sure that Dawn could not see. "Well let's see how much of MMM's money they are going to get back from us, in the next few minutes."

Everyone took a seat and sat back a little to relax, for a bit. Their part of the mission was over, for now. Now it was their turn to relax and let the Captain work up some brain sweat, to support the mission. Robert looked up and started to look around, when he made eye contact with the Sales rep for the Show Room. He waved her over, and he already had on his own salesman smile.

Dawn gave a small smile, as she started to walk over to the table with the four strangers sitting around the heavy-duty yard table. She was thinking that this was not going to be a big sale. It would, however, keep the sales department heads off her case, for the next few days. Maybe she would even keep her job for another week or month. Every mech these people had looked at was at or over a Million C-Bills, out the door. They were not a ten million C-Bills sale, like moving that Atlas would bring in. Then again? They have been trying to move that one beast for the last four years and they have had no takers, yet. She still was hoping to pull that one off one day. She had to push that dream out of her brain and focus on this sale, even if it was going to be smaller than she had first hoped for only a few hours ago.

"Dawn, I think we are ready to see what your company is going to get out of us today. Do you think we could have that gentleman come out again with some drinks, ones that are a little more potent than cold fruit juice?"

Robert was loading the deck, for the Sales Rep. Or that was what he was hoping, that she was thinking something like that. Robert had been down this road before and was betting he was better at it, than this saleswoman was. It was a gamble, and he like to gamble a little bit. He had missed being able to do it so far. The fun part? It was that he was gambling with another person's money, and they were okay with him doing it. What more can a person wish for in a job?

Normally she would not have called the vender to come out, outside his normal route. Company policy was that it was reserved for higher end sales. She had called him the first time because of the notice from Corporate about Captain Copeland coming to look around. She thought that if someone that high in Corporate knew who this Captain was? Then a few free drinks were in order. The second stop by had been because it was on his normal route. Besides a Wasp was about 1.6 million C-Bills new, and most of these machines were not that much cheaper than the 20ton weapon system. So, Dawn sent a ping on her noteputor for the vender to come back out, before she sat down at the outdoor table again. Her boss could cancel the request, but she had done as asked by this client.

She would have preferred to work in one of the more lavishly appointed offices, that was also nicely air conditioned and dust free. But if this was where they wanted to work? Then she was game for it. So, Dawn sat down in an old lawn chair to work on a million C-Bill sale. Across from her was a local, that Captain Copeland had the foresight to hire. Dawn had never worked for or against her before, but she had read a company report about her while they had waited. She had been reviewing it again, when she walked away so that the group could have a private meeting.

The report had said that she was very good or very bad, if you have to work against her. It was said that her mother was also a real pain to work against, if she was working for the other side when buying any products from someone who had hired her. Dawn had wondered why MMM had not hired her or forced her off planet, by now. Well that was a thought for another day.

Right now, Miss Noone was deep in her noteputor doing something, which no doubt was to help her client work this deal. Dawn was still getting all of her notes together, when the vender made his way back to the table. Everyone orders a local beer to drink, Dawn smiled to herself. It always made her job easier, when the other side was drinking on an empty stomach. Dawn re-pinged the drink vender with a code. This was the code for him to stay near for the negotiations. It also unfortunately pinged her bosses' devices, and that might be bad, or they would just redirect the vender back inside. She was doing everything by the MMM Sales book. If her boss did not like it? Well, at least she was covered, and HR would have to deal with her "bitch" side.

When Dawn was drawing out the time, that she needed before she started the negotiating. The longer she took, the better. By the time she was ready to start the negotiations. They all had almost finished their first beer. Before Dawn could do more than say, boo. Lora held her hand up. It was the universal sign that she needed more time, before they could start the process of the sale of the machines. Dawn smiled, this time it showed on her face. Two beers should make her job that much easier, and a bigger commission for her to put in her bank account. She might even get a full percentage bonus out of this, after all.

Dawn knew the other side was ready, when Lora passed her noteputor over to Robert. Dawn saw that it had a very detailed image of a 30ton logger mech. _"So, that is the one they want_." Thought Dawn, as she pulled up some information in a small side screen on her own electronic device. _"Well, that's the cheapest one they could buy_." She had to fight not to let a frown come to her face at seeing the list price. She was a commission sells rep, and the more expensive the machine they bought the more money she could take home.

After giving Robert a few seconds to look at the data. He turned it, so that Dawn could not see the screen anymore. It was a letdown, but a million sale was a million C-Bill sale. You did not do those every day, not even with a major Mech works on the planet like MMM. If she could close this deal? She would take home just under 10,000. Well 10,000 c bills before all of the taxes and other fees were taken out of that check. That was not a bad two months' pay, if you can handle the stress.

Dawn put on her smile at full power, and eye locked the Captain. "So, looks like you're ready. What machine are you looking at adding to your company today?"

Robert had the screen pointed toward him, and then he looked right at the saleswoman. "Dawn, do you give a discount when you purchase multiple machines? That is if you buy them all at once?" Asked Robert with a straight face. He had seen Dawns face, when Lora had passed the noteputor to him. The little downturn of her lips on the right side of her face said that she was hoping for a bigger sale, when she had seen the logger mech displayed on the small but bright screen. It was just as Lora and he wanted it to be. That also was the reason that he was going to start working this deal, and not her.

 _"Boy is she in for a surprise_ ," thought Robert. He had his poker face on, as he went to work. He just added two points to his own score card against Dawn. You had to have some way to know if you won, or to know how badly you lost.

This was not the first time that Dawn heard of someone asking this question. The answer was always the same. "I am sorry, sir. That is unless you're buying a dozen, with a pre order request that has been filed with the home office. MMM does not give a group discount."

She said out loud. But in her mind? It was going in hyper speed. " _Well this has gotten a lot better_." Selling three machines, in one setting was rare. So rare, in fact? That she could not think of anyone working the floor of this building, today, that had done it before. Even if the machines were the cheapest on the lot. In the quantity they wanted, it would make this a very big sale.

"So, you're looking at all three of the Logger Mechs?" She worked on her noteputor, until she found the page she wanted. "They are a little over one point four million C-Bills each, so we can call it four point four million C-Bills. Or four point three, if you pick them up yourself. If you prefer, we can convert the amount to any of the house bills you like, if that would be easier. MMM can handle most forms of House Bills, with minimal fees on the conversion over to C-Bills."

Robert had the same half smile on, that he used at other times like these. "No, Dawn. We will keep everything in C-Bills, if you don't mind. That is the way that we are used to working anyway. We will start with those machines, and then see where we can go after that."

Robert looked down at the noteputor before he continued. He did not want to see the saleswoman's face just yet. "From what I can see, those types of machines go for one point two five million C-Bills, new. These machines are well maintained, but you would have to agree with me. That they are far from new in condition. Your company has been making money on the rental fees for some time, almost a decade on one of them. Now, I don't know how much you have been charging on those rentals. I would bet they have already started to pay down the cost of buying them, in the first place. I think three million for all of them, is a fair price." Now, it was time for Robert to watch how Dawn would react to that sum of money.

Dawn was still sitting straight in her yard chair, but the lines at the corner of her eyes twitched a little. _"So, they might want more than just those three old machines. This should be interesting."_ She kept her voice level, and she was wishing that she had her desk as a prop to use. "Captain Copeland, I can go down as low as three point three for the lot. That is, it. Any lower and I will have to ask you for a job, and I hate space travel."

" _This was not too far from the truth on both counts_ ," Dawn thought to herself. She might have gotten away with taking three point one or even three million flat. She could always say that she was trying to keep a VIP happy for MMM, as a whole company. It would not fly that far but it would fly, somewhat. It would depend on who these people really knew in MMM's upper chain of command. Anyone can name drop, after all.

Robert thought about pushing harder, but then changed his mind. The information that Lora had passed him, had said that the whole lot of the machines that they wanted. All would sale for about nineteen point four million, in total. He had thought about asking for a lot price, even after being told there was not a group discount. Then he had gotten a feeling that Dawn would not go lower than nineteen or maybe eighteen point eight. He could see her saying how great a deal they were making, at getting a half a million C-Bill price reduction off of the listed price. That would be a hard-bargaining stance to beat, so he would break down what he wanted into smaller groups. Then he could try to get a price break, that way. It was going to make the day longer, but Robert felt that it was going to be worth the time. He made himself look down at the screen again and he made a face that Dawn could only partially see, before he continued with his part of the dance.

"Three point three million C-Bills is a lot of money, and I will still have the transportation cost in getting them off planet and out of this system. I can do that, but I need them Agro inspection clean. I also want a complete service regiment done on each one of them before I accept them. And I want them delivered to my ships, at the drop port, at MMM's cost. On top of that, I will need them delivered no later than noon tomorrow." Robert looked up from the screen with the last part of his verbal delivery, to see how she would react to that little bit of news.

Dawn was fighting not to jump up and down. " _Yes!_!" she had done it. The three conditions that he had asked for. They all were free, no matter what machine they had bought. Then it hit her. He might be joking. She had to make sure one way, or the other? "We can do all of that, but we cannot deliver until payment, in full, has been made to MMM."

Dawn stop when she looked around the table. Unless she was very wrong? They were going to transfer the funds tonight. _"No wonder Corporate HQ was involved. These guys had some money to draw on!"_ Now Dawn knew that they had not been just name dropping. These people were the real deal, and they wanted to spend a hill sized amount of C-Bills. All because they had them.

"Okay, then we have a deal Captain Copeland." She started to stand up, but something made her stop and return to her yard chair. No one else was rising from the table. She lost her composure for a few long seconds and started looking around the table. She was trying to work out what she had missed. She had gotten so focused on closing the sale, that she had forgotten the little words "for now" that the Captain had said at the start.

Lora looked at Dawn, and it took almost a full minute for her to realize that Lora was waiting for something. When Dawn got her work face back on, she was looking back at Lora. Lora figured that she needed to get the next step going on her own. "Dawn, we would like to pass the funds for these machines right now and end this part of the deal. Do you have the account number and billing code, which I can transfer the funds to now? We do not want to get caught out, if the banks close a little early today."

Dawn looked down at her noteputor, and quickly found the information and sent it to Lora's digital mail address, one had been in her file. She had never been there, when someone paid a multimillion C-Bill deal in full. The same day that it had been agreed to. It was a little unsettling, to tell you the truth. She could tell that this was not over yet. Her heart rate started to climb again as she waited for the data transfer.

Lora's noteputor buzzed and she looked down, and her fingers went to work in short flashes of movement. "There we go. The funds are working towards the account number you gave me. I hope it was the right one, dear. MMM does not like mistakes like that." Lora's smile took the sting out of the last few words of her statement, but it was only half a joke and both women knew it. You could run far and fast with the kind of funds, that had just been passed digitally between the two bank account numbers.

Robert looked from Lora back to Dawn the Saleswoman. "Now that is done. Dawn what can you do on both of those Rock Hounds and the single Rock Otter mech?" Asked Robert, as he folded his arms across his chest and waited for a reply. This was starting to be a bucket full of fun, for the man from far away.

Dawn was stunned. _"They wanted more than those machines, after all_." This could be a good night. The key might be keeping them here and happy, as long as she could. "Captain Copeland, exactly how many machines are we going to be talking about tonight? If we are going to be here for a while? Maybe I should have some real food delivered for us? I believe Miss Noone likes the food at Café Le Chiffre." Dawn was remembering a bit of the other woman's file. She had been very surprised at how much detail MMM had on this woman and her family.

Robert looked around the table, before saying any more. He could see agreement on all of his people's faces, about the offer of food. "Dawn, food would be very nice. If you do order something, just have them send over our usual. If you, please? As for how long we will be here. This is dependent on how long it takes to reach the top of our pre-planned budget."

He gave a sly grin that Dawn found sexy, and he cocked an eyebrow at her. "Before you ask. I will not tell you what the budget is. You will know, when I tell you. That we are there, and our buying has come to a close. Now back to those mining mechs." Robert drops the grin and his face went still as stone, as he waited for a reply.

Dawn needed to think quickly and accurately. "Let me take care of the food first, and let my bosses know that we will be here for some time. We will also need some banking support. I think that we will need to let them know, before they go home for the night. They so hate it, when we call them in after they have gone home for the night. They tend to drag their feet, when you make them go back to their comfortable offices." She gave a soft laugh at her own joke, but it did not carry over with Robert's group. Robert just gave her a slight nod of his head. Dawn got up from the table to take care of what she needed to.

When Dawn rose to leave the table, Lora reached again for her personal noteputor. She opened a program. She sent the driver waiting for them a notice, that they were going to be longer than expected. She told him that he could leave and get him something to eat, and to charge it to them. By the time Dawn was reaching for the door to the Show Room, the sedan was already pulling out of the underground parking area. There was a very happy driver at the controls of the hover car. Not only was he getting overtime? He was now getting a free meal on top of that.

When Dawn entered the building, her boss, his boss, and her boss all were waiting for her out of sight from the yard. She waved to them but went to the land line first to take care of the food order. She was surprised when she told the Cafe' who the food was for. Then with those few magic words. They had no problem making a food delivery, as long as payment would be given at the time of delivery. This was common for a short list of food venders, that MMM had used in the past, but this was a first-time order to this location. It would seem, that the file was again correct about Miss Noone. She had friends, and then she had some friends that would do a lot to keep working with her.

Now with seven meals on the way, to help further "grease" the skids of negotiations. She had to deal with her supervisors, before going back outside to make another deal for who knew how many millions of C-Bills. That was one thing she hated about this job. Bureaucracy over deals, dominated this level of the massive manufacturing company.

When she came back from the land line. She fast walked back to her supervisor's office to give them an update on these strange VIPs. She started by telling them that Copeland and group, had bought the three logger mechs. They were not that impressed, until she told them that they had transferred the funds already to pay for them. This was met with some disbelief until one of them checked with the finance department, and they contacted the bank.

It only took a few minutes of talking before the bank told them, that they had a three point three million C-Bills deposit being processed for the sales department's primary account. Dawn did not realize, that she had been a little nervous when they contacted the bank. But it looked like they were giving a billing code that matched the one on Dawns computer. After some quick explaining that Dawn's clients were not done shopping, but they wanted to discuss the purchase of the Rock Hound/Otters on the back lot with her boss. She just told them that they were hinting that they might want all three of the working machines. That is, if she could close this part of the deal with this group. A deal that they were delaying her on.

The three-person management team was not overjoyed about the sale price for the workmechs, but they knew that they were used machines. They still would turn a nice profit in the books, on that one sale. They told her. If she closes the deal on those three other machines? She would break the Show Rooms best day, for the number of Mech sold in one day ever. They wished her luck on breaking the single day sales of twelve million C-Bills. The words were nice, but the tone that those words had been given were not. Both of those records had been set by her second line boss. What was not said, but Dawn knew from the watercooler talk. It had taken MMM over three months, to get all of the money for that lance of Battlemechs she had sold to the mercenary unit. She let the evil tone slide off of her back. She had some money to make in commissions.

She told them that they needed to make sure that the full cleaning and service crew came in first thing in the morning. She restated that this Captain would want the machines, he was buying tonight, in his hands by noon tomorrow or there would be hell to pay. She also told them that she might need someone with banking connections to be available, before she was done tonight. She did a little lift of her chin, and her smile was pure evil.

At first, her boss thought she might just be showing off and trying to get under her skin by being cocky. That was until her boss and the senior person in the room got up to leave and told her the same thing, that Dawn had said. Now it was not a joke. She reached over and called the head of the Finance department and made arrangements, for someone in that department to be there all night. They were to stay at work until they were contacted and told that they were not needed anymore, by someone in the sales department. She advised them to keep an eye out for any fund transfers coming from her office tonight. She got some push back from that department, but she stomped on it. All she had to do was mention her boss's name, and that did the trick. She did not even have to go to the level, that the word to help them had come from the President's personal assistant with a bullet.

Dawn had a strut to her walk, as she left the office. Her boss and the only male in her food chain, smiled and gave her a thumbs up. Dawn returned the gesture, with a sly smile on her face. If she sold just one more machine? she would get a lance bonus. If she broke the all-time sells for the total number of C-Bills, in one day? That was another bonus on top of the lance bonus. She told herself to check what the bonus was for selling two lances worth of equipment, in one day might be. She was running the numbers in her head, to see how much she might be making today and tonight. That was just in bonuses and commissions she already had in the bank. She was looking forward to taking that nice month-long vacation on the beach, that she had wanted to take for years. First, she was going to pay for a year of her homes lease. She knew that for every feast, there are going to be two famines. She had to fight down the urge to click her heals together as she cleared the office space.

When she exited the door to the back lot, she could see Captain Copeland and group with their feet up on the lawn table relaxing drinking more beers or wine. Even the man that ran the Vender cart was talking with them. She noted that this group made friends easily. All they needed was a little fire burning and it could have been a backyard get together, instead of a multimillion C-Bill business deal that it already had become.

As Dawn got closer to the group, the feet had come down off the table and the vender started to leave. He quickly decided, that he should just move a little way away from this group and sales rep for the Show Room. He stopped just out of hearing range, so the group could have some privacy. He still was close enough to be called over, when anyone needed refills or just some fresh drinks. He knew that the "wine" was mostly fruit juice in a wine glass. He should have alerted the sales rep, but he had been given a nice tip. Besides the sales reps tended to look down at him. He knew that most of that was due to him being able to pee standing up.

Dawn pulled the yard chair out and sat down at the yard table. It took a few moments for her to get comfortable. A business suit and a lawn chair did not mix well, but she was trying her best to pull it off. All the while trying to maintain her dignity. When she felt that it was good enough. She looked back at the leader of this quartet.

"So, Captain Copeland. Were you looking to make another bulk purchase on the Rock Hounds and the Rock Otter, also?" She was not sure, but you had to start somewhere.

Lora was the one to answer and not Robert, this time. This was a standard trick to keep the seller off of their game plan. "Yes, we are looking to buy all three of them. That is, if the price is right. What would you call a fair price?"

Dawn looked down at her little computer again. The little noteputor had an image of the Rock Hound and all the information on it, that she needed to make the sale. "Well, I guess I will start. They all are listed for sale on the planetary information net, and the total comes to right at five point six million for the trio." Now all she had to do was wait, for the counter bid to come from the other side of the table. She knew that the listed price was high, but she had not lied to the man and his team. That was what the total, of what was listed for them on the sales public access network came to.

Lora just blinked at the other woman in "shocked" surprise. "Are you kidding me? Dawn, you have the logbooks. The total, new out of the factory is maybe five point five. And these machines are old. The Rock Otter is listed as having been salvaged from the bottom of a shallow ocean over fifty years ago, and she is the newest of the three. Would you like to try again?"

" _Oh crap_ ," Dawn looked down at her computer and flipped to the information on the Otter. Miss Noone was right about the Otter. Everyone knew that saltwater was very bad on machinery and worse on mechs. She knows that she needs a good counteroffer, or this deal was burned. And by burned? It was that her company was going to take a hit to the bottom line or the mech would be staying on the sales lot.

Dawn and Lora went back and forth on the cost of the three machines several more times. They had just come to a total amount, that was well below what Dawn had asked for at first. It also was lower, than what Robert would have settled for to buy them. Lora had just finished sending the four point nine million C-Bills to the MMM account, when the food was delivered.

Dawn was very pleased with herself even with the hard ball playing Lora. She still had sold those last three machines, at a profit. It was not that much of a profit per machine, but it would still be listed on the books as a profit. They had just finished the transfer, when the food was brought in. She had not known what to order from Le Chiffre, so she had just asked for whatever Lora had normally. She was now mouth deep in angel hair pasta, when Robert said something. She looked up and something must have been on her face, because the Captain repeated what he had said before with a knowing smile on his face.

Robert had to fight down a food spewing laugh, at the look on the Saleswoman's face with thin pasta hanging out of it. He repeated what he had said, to the top of her head a second ago. He had waited until she was over a quarter of the way done with the main dish, before he had interrupted her. "Its great food, don't you think? Normally we work through to the end of our meals, as a habit. So, what is the price you are looking to get on the four Power loaders? The one's you have here, on the grounds. We only have one between the two dropships I command. I don't think you know what it's like trying to unload eight thousand tons of cargo, with only one of those. Let me tell you. It's not something I want to do again. That is if we don't have to."

Dawn quickly put her fork down and looked up from checking her noteputor and let her head tilt to one side. This was a gaff, and after so many hours working with this man. He had not made a gaff, yet. Or was it a trap of some kind, he had just left for her to fall into. Dawn made a face. She knew that she was very good at her job, but right then. She did not know what way the statement might break. She decided just to stick to her game plan, as if he had not said a word after asking about them. Sometimes putting most of your cards on the table was the best bet.

"Captain Copeland, you should not have told me that. Now I know how much you need them, so I could stick it to you on the price." Dawn said between a few mouths full of amazing tasting food. She had already added it to her short list of restaurants to eat at, in the near future.

Robert looked at her and smiled, as he wiped some red sauce from the side of his mouth with a thick paper napkin. "Not really. We had a good look at them and their logbooks, already. I know that they are almost new, so I think five point five is a good price for the group of four machines." Robert met the eyes of Lora. She had thought they could have gotten the machines for a little cheaper. Robert agreed in his mind, but it would have taken a lot of time to get a little lower price. And in the end, Lora might have been wrong about getting a little price cut on the four machines.

Dawn just said one word. "Done."

Dawn did not want to say more, because she did not trust her voice. She had just busted two goals, in one deal. She now had the most sales in a day and selling of eight machines in a day. That was two full lances of equipment. And she had done it all with one word, that was on top of the single lance bonus she had gotten with the Rock Hounds. Dawn did some typing on her computer, and Lora sent the note to authorize the funds to be moved to the MMM bank account. When Dawn's noteputor buzzed to get her attention, a few seconds later. She looked down at the message from her next two higher supervisors displayed on her screen.

It was a very short, but a powerful message that she read. They wanted to congratulate her on breaking the single day sells record, for the highest total sales in millions of C-Bills. She had totally forgotten about that company goal. Maybe she would go and have another look at that house on the hill she had always wanted. She did not have the down payment, that was needed the first time she had seen it. She now had the down payment and maybe a few years' worth of mortgage payments. She had done it all in one afternoon of work. It was all luck, and because someone in the office had wanted to make her look bad. " _Maybe living well is always the best revenge, like mom always had said_. I am still going to kick someone in the ovaries."

Robert looked over at Dawn, as she was reading something on her minicomputer. Whatever it was she was reading? It must have been good, because she had a sly smile on her face. Robert thought it might be a few messages from her boss. He knew it was not every day that someone sold over ten million C-Bills worth of equipment, in one day.

Robert thought, " _Now is the time to finish this, if I can._ "

Robert looked around the table. It was covered in plastic plates that were mostly cleaned of food, and many empty bottles of beer and fruit drink. "Well Dawn, looks like we are almost done. We are almost up to the top end, of what I have budgeted to buy items with today. I think we can get a few more items, that are on my list and that you might be able to fill for us. I want to know what you can do for the four Carbines and that big." Robert paused while he looked at an image on Lora's device, before continuing talking. "There we are. It's called a Dig King. It's the 65ton mining mech." Robert looked at Dawn waiting for a reply. He could tell that he had her undivided attention again. The food might be good, but it was not that good.

Dawn's head shot up from her noteputor like a snake and looked at Robert. The last bit of food was a little harder to get down her throat. _"Well, they want another five machines. Let's see how I can skin this cat?"_

Dawn rocked back in her chair, with her arms stretched out and the hands going flat on the table. She was looking at Robert, but she was also watching Lora out of the corner of her eye. She knows, " _he must have noticed her reading the messages and guessed what they might be about."_ She had to fight to keep her work face on.

Dawn went back to her computer and looked up the sale slips for each of the five machines, that he had asked about. She was not going to be caught flat footed, like what had happened with the Rock Otter. Very quickly she did the math, in her head. She did all of this in under a minute. She was not just a pretty face with long legs. After all the Magistracy of Canopus was a female dominated society since 2530.

"Robert, the list price for all five machines would be around ten point one million C-Bills. I know that you do not want to pay that much, for all of them. So why don't you tell me what you think you can get them for, and I will see if "we" agree."

While she was talking to Robert, she sent two messages out to all of her supervisors in the building. In as few as words as possible. She told them that the deals were still not done tonight, and that another lance might be in the works. She was thinking that those messages should get them bouncing against and off of the Show Room's walls, again. She had to fight a smile down, at the images of what her short messages were going to cause in the building behind her. They would be trying to figure out what was going to move next. Dawn could have sent them a message about what they were looking at, but she did not do this on purpose.

Robert was taking the lead on this one, just as he and Lora had worked out. "Well, Dawn. How about we look at the down sides first, so we can take that ten million number right off the table. The four 30ton Carbines are old, dirty, and according to your own books. You have been renting them out for all most a full decade, and they have been on the side markets for longer than that without any buyer coming forward. I'm not going to pay one point four million for each of them. The Dig King is over a hundred years old, if the data plate is correct. I think your company has been trying to sell it for, I think longer than you have been alive. Lora tracked down some information, on the net. And she found that MMM has raised and lowered the asking price, so many times it's not funny. I would bet that every time someone new takes over the Sales Department. The first thing they do, is mess with its price. Just trying to get that much red ink, off the books. It such a specialized machine. That no one on this planet has rented it from you, in how long. Am I right, Dawn? The area under the foot pads has deformed, because it has not moved in so long. Mike and I don't think your people have been parking it in exactly the same place, after each use." Robert had a twinkle in his eyes. He knew that he had a lot of high cards on this one. He had not thought that he would be able to get the mining mech or the last two Carbines. They have saved so much money so far, that now they were in play. He really did have a maximum he wanted to spend to night.

Dawn was blinking fast as she double checked the information on her own machine. In her mind she was working out what to do. Sometimes she hates it, when someone does their homework. _"Looks like the good Captain is playing for keeps on this one._ " The really bad part? It was that when she checked her notes, everything he said was true. The only thing that she had working for her, was that it was obvious that he wanted them. He wanted them badly. But what she did not know was, would he walk away from them if the price was not right?

 _"Now how do I play this,"_ Dawn thought to herself? "Captain it's getting late. I think we need to agree on the Carbines first, then we can worry about the big boy later. I can go as low as one point two for each of the construction machines. For what we are renting them for, over the last year? Any lower, and it would be better just to keep them. We can just keep renting them out as someone needs them, and we can make more money. In the long run, of say a year to twenty-four months and they will be paid off. After that? It will be almost all profit generation, after paying for maintenance."

Robert was drumming his fingers on the thick plastic covered table. He was letting the pressure build, as he stayed quiet for long minutes. That was a little better price than he hoped for the workmechs, but he did not want to let her know it. He would have paid no more than one point two five, for each of the mechs. You never wanted to pay the retail price. Not when you had to sell it to someone else, and still make a profit. If you did that? You would not stay in business for long. But these machines were hard to find without going in deeper to the inner sphere, or at a capital system, or be on some other major world. On the other hand? They were used machines, and you do not pay new car prices for a used machine no matter where you were. Robert had to keep with his cover story, and that took the retail price right off the table. It was just a good thing that high command was not that worried about making a profit. It was more worried about getting the needed items.

"Dawn, I don't know if that is that great of an offer on those mechs or not. Then again, I will agree to that price and take all four." Robert did a "slight of hand" to distract her with an off-topic question. "So, Dawn. What do you get for selling the number of machines equal to a full-strength company? I know that they might not be a combat company. I think a fully equipped engineer company, is a nice bit of merchandise to move in only one day?"

Dawn looked around the table, and then looked back to Robert. Then she shrugged her shoulders. "To tell you the truth, I have no idea. This is so far out of the normal for me, and anyone else in the building. I have never even talked about something like this at the water cooler, it's not even funny. I just hope my bosses don't try to rip me off later. As far as I know, it is that we only have a lance and two lance sales bonuses. The only reason I know about the two-lance bump, is that I looked it up before we had dinner."

She looked back down at the screen of her hand-held system. Her system had all the information that Lora's had, but it also had the additional information of what was the lowest price a certain machine could be sold for. It also had the proprietary information of MMM. If someone sold a machine for more than that number? They would get an extra cut of the profits on the sale, as their commission. That was true of every machine in the Show Room, and it was true of a lot of their machines on the back lot. The bad part was the Dig King, it did not have that information on her system. She had gone to all of the "Normal" places, but they all were missing some key information.

It had everything you could think of about the ancient machine, and its known history. It had its current list price of four point five million C-Bills. It also had the price history going back decades, on the rise and fall of that list price. She picked a price, that was it the middle of the graph of highs and lows. It would be the safest bet, and it was one that she could defend if her boss called her on the carpet about the sale price being too low. With all of the sales she had done tonight. She did not think that it would be that big of a deal, even if it was too low by a large margin.

"I think three point five million is a fair price for a machine, that massive. I bet you have some ideas about changing up its current working tools, for something else more aggressive. Like say, a heavy wrecking ball of some kind?" Dawn folded her hands on top of her sales computer.

Robert gave a loud laugh, that carried over to the still waiting vender cart. "If I knew, that they had more of these Dig Kings where we are going? I would pay that, but there is no way to be sure. It's not like I can go into all the mines, in all the systems, and do a head count or inventory on what is on those properties. I also have no idea what the end user will end up outfitting it with. So, I'm not paying that price ether. How is MMM set for spare parts to support it? Because that is what is holding me back from buying it, now. That is, how am I going to support it, when we leave this planet."

That was true, for the most part. He knew that New Circe did not have any of this class of mech, but he thought it would be a great help in the war effort. The problem was supporting a one-off machine, with limited support supplied on planet. That is what was supplied by the small industrial base that could be directed at it, once they get home. They could support a lance of war machines or a one of a kind industrial machine. It that was the case? That one machine had better be very good at its job. If it was not… Well, there was always room in the junkyard with the rest of the Rusties. It would not be the first time that something was brought back from a mission, and that later proved to not be useful enough to developed long term support. The clan would use it until it was no longer effective at its given job or mission. That might not be likely, now that the only line that usually produced replacement parts for all of the workmechs/agromechs on the planet was not doing so. It was now making parts for the ground force mechs and some key components for aerospace fighters.

"If you have enough spare parts, and attachments to last for a few years. For let's say for five years or so. Then I will pay three million to you for it, tonight." Robert folded his arms across his chest. He would walk away from this machine tonight. He could always come back another day, or just forget about it.

Dawn did not know what to say, so she just sat there thinking. There was no way for her to know what spare parts were available or on hand for that thing. If it had been a Wasp or Locust? She had an idea, even with the Atlas. She knew that they had years' worth of spare parts stored in the main warehouse for that Assault mech, but she did not know if it was five years' worth of parts. She had seen them once on a tour of the main production facility. From what she had heard. They were trying to have enough parts on hand to fix up a second 100ton machine in a year or so, just from the extra parts that they had found. Soon all they would need was another Foundation Type 10x chassis in decent enough shape, and those were not found at the corner drug store.

"Robert, I do not have access to that information. Let me go see if I can find it. This one, I'm going to have to kick up to someone higher in my food chain." The Sales Rep stood up from the table and walked back into the building with quick steps. She hated not having the answer, and she was also not liking that she was going to have to deal with one of her bosses to find out the information she was lacking. It was getting late, but she was wired on adrenaline. She was going to need it to deal with her boss, in the next few minutes. That was a bit of a buzz kill.

Dawn did not know it, but two of her bosses had been watching the whole time via the security cameras mounted on the outside of the building. They even had ordered that the few cameras mounted on the access gate looking towards the back part of the yard, to be shifted so that they were looking their way. They could not hear what was going on, but they could see them working. Then magically they would see the funds transfer to the sales account. So, they knew that she was still making them money, and lots of it tonight. It was remarked and noted, that neither Dawn nor the group made any odd gestures when a sale was complete. They had expected a flurry of handshakes or touched glasses to close deals on this magnitude.

Normally it took weeks if not months, to set up sells that were not equal to half of what Dawn had pulled off this afternoon and evening alone. They had no idea if it all had been luck, or if it had been Dawn's selling skills. They had no idea. That they just happened to have, what Captain Copeland had been ordered to buy for the good of his Clan. They had just been lucky that Dawn had asked the right questions and had been willing to listen, and maybe take the low-end sale. That listening had turned into a massive amount of money for their department to night.

Dawn was a little startled, when her supervisors were waiting for her as she re-entered the building. Since Captain Copeland and his group were still setting outside. They knew something must have come up, and they wanted to know what it was. They hope the money faucet was not closed for the night. They had gotten used to the numbers in their account climbing at a steady rate. It was a very novel experience for them, and they liked it.

Dawn's first line supervisor was missing, but her second line was the first of the two women to talk to her. She had sweat visibly beading up on her forehead. She seemed to have already gotten over losing the number one single day sales of total mechs of all times title. Granted she was still getting a cut of what her salesperson was making tonight. That had to take the sting out of losing the title, somewhat.

"You're doing a great job, Dawn. They are still outside in the dark. Is something wrong?" She was fidgeting left and right, and she was rubbing her hands together as she was talking to Dawn. She had just finished her second pot of coffee on an empty stomach, and it was showing.

Dawn had a flash of a few things she would like to have said, but she decided that she would keep it civil instead. "I'm glad you're still here. They want five more machines. They want the four Carbines and that old Dig King. They have agreed to part of the deal. They will pay four point eight million for the four Carbines. The problem is the Dig King."

She passed her noteputor with the image of the mech in question displayed on the screen, with all the information on it. "I don't know how low I can go. They have done their homework, so they know we have been trying to sell that thing for almost forever. The kicker is they want enough spare parts to keep it running for five years of standard wear and tear. I have no idea if we have that kind of stock, for that hunk of junk. If I agree to that, and we don't have it? Well you know he could take us to court, and he would win for breach of contract. Right now, the Carbine deal is on hold. He offered three million for the King, but only if we have the amount of spare parts he wants."

The last part was a lie, and she knew it. But it was her job to make the deal, and if that little push was what was needed to get the deal closed? She would do it and do it again twice on Sunday. She would take the sale and commission with a smile on her face, and not say a word edge wise to anyone in her company for as long as she could.

Shelley was the supervisor for the whole Show Room department, and she also was Dawn's boss's boss. She was not known for expressions of emotions, of any kind. She took the title of "Ice Queen" as a badge of honor. That meant when the older lady shrieked and started jumping up and down. Much less when she started dancing around in a circle, both of her subordinates were speechless. When the normally reserved supervisor stopped the movements, that many would never believe she would undertake. She had a huge smile on her face.

"Dawn take the deal! We have almost enough parts to make a second machine, and they can have all of them. The savings on our taxes at the end of this year alone, will make it worth it. If they had not made an offer already? I would say give it to them, and all the parts we have on hand, as a comp for the amount of money they have spent here already."

Shelley stopped talking for a second and she went from a sack of joy, and back to her normal stone face. "Damn it! I don't know if that is enough to meet their requirements. I want you to make a counteroffer of two million C-Bills and tell them that we will give them every spare part, that we can find for it. Take their money dear and close the deal. Do you know if there is anything else, they might be looking at?" The last was so fast and in an odd accent, that no one understood what she had said for a few long seconds.

Dawn looked at the two other people near her with some confusion evident on her face. She went with addressing the last question first. "No. This Lora Noone and Captain Copeland play their cards very close to their chests. Do you want me to comp them the Dig King and parts?" This was a new area. She was never allowed to offer comps on anything but free food, drinks, maybe a few ammunition reloads, threat software updates, or some spare armor plates before. She was testing the waters, but she was unsure of the depth.

Shelly looked at Dawn and her quick mind came up with an idea for later. "No, Dawn. You should never leave money on the table. They made a good faith offer, with conditions. We will meet them at least on most of those conditions, so they should meet their end of the good faith offer. It is not your fault, that they did not ask for a comp of any kind before making that offer. You never know? These people are strangers, that have never been here before. A comp might be an insult to them. As soon as they transfer the funds and we get all the paperwork done, when they are done? We all can go home with dreams of large commission checks in our future. It will be an early morning for some of us, just so we can make sure we get these things off our property. Now I will be able to put a notice with the main office and try to get some better equipment, to replace that stuff you have been able to move." She had almost said junk but had stopped at the last moment. It was not nice, to call something junk. That you had just sold and was paying you a massive part of your whole years pay. All in a single night.

Dawn nodded her head in agreement and turn for the door. Thinking about when she got her commission check, at the end of the month. She was definitely going to take a few weeks off and relax. As she walked back to the table, she had a smile on her face that was not fake. When she was close to the table, she raised her voice a little. She did not see the need to be quiet.

"Good news. I was told, that there are almost enough spare parts to make a second mech on hand. They don't know if it will cover all the normal wear and tear items for a five-year period, but it should be close. They will pack every one of the spare parts, that we have on hand and bring them out to the drop port. I was told to counter your offer with two million. That is accepted by my boss already, if you agree to our counteroffer. And so as soon as we have payment? It is yours, Captain." She saw smiles on the faces around the table. She noted that the Captain made a gesture to Lora. Dawn kept getting closer and soon was standing, so that she could look down on Lora.

Dawn looked over at Lora, who she noticed was finishing the transfer of funds for the five machines. She put on a beaming smile and looked over at Robert. "Well, sir. They are all yours. Would you like to look at what we have at some of our outlying showrooms, or in the main Warehouse? I can have someone pull the inventory list for you. It might take a few days, but we can have them shipped in for your inspection or you can fly out to see them. I'm sure we could have a proper passenger VTOL ready by the afternoon." Dawn asked hopefully. This group had just purchased every operational work mech that the Show Room had, that were not already being rented out.

Robert laughed slightly, waved off her comment and shook his head side to side. "No, Dawn. I think you have taken enough of our funds, for the time being. We have some other items, that we have people looking at for us. If you have something we can take and look at, when we have some spare time? That would be nice. We will post an updated wish list, on the normal spots' tomorrow. If you see an item on that list that you can fill? Then by all means, contact us. I look forward to doing business with you again, Dawn. Now, it's late and I would like to get back to my cabin. I need to get some sleep, before I have to start this kind of work all over again. I know, that I said, I would like the machines on the dropship by noon. I don't think that will be likely, now. If you can start dropping them off starting at noon? That would be good enough. I must have them all by dark, to include the spare parts you promised for the Dig Lord. My Cargo Master can get them packed down in our cargo bays, as they come in. Please do not wait to the last minute to send them over. If you have a load, just send it over. My people will take care of it." Robert started to stand up and the others of his group joined him, in rising from the cheap glass covered plastic outdoor table.

Robert looked around the lot with the mechs, tanks and other military equipment spread out around him. Out of the blue, he tried to picture, in his head, what it was going to look like by this time tomorrow. He had to fight down a smile, and he turned around a little to block Dawn from seeing it. He was betting that it was going to take a while to fill the empty slots. "I don't think you are going to have any parking issues out here, for a while."

 _"Well I guess they got what they wanted, out of me. I know that they did not run out of money. They are still looking for more cargos. I just need to find something else, that they want."_ Dawn had thought the last deal was the end, but she had to at least try to get one more sale in. Or at least try, to get one more in. That was because, if she did not? She would always second guess herself, that they might have been talked into another sale if she pushed just a little harder. That was the salesperson in her soul telling her that. She looked down at her noteputor and fought down a shout, as her eyes ran across her little screen. She had just been given a surprise by her company.

The company supplied digital pad now had a newly modified screen saver. It now had her name in bold letters and that she had sold over 21 million C-Bills worth or over 81 million MC Dollars' worth of equipment in a day. It even had little flashing fireworks going off in the area around her name. That new screen saver would be pushed to every computer in her division, at least. It would stay there, minus the little fireworks. Those would stop in a few days, but her name would be there until something else on that scale was completed, by someone else. That was going to be some time down the road, if she was a betting person.

While she was fighting the urge to dance, she saw the book that woman called Jess had been spending all night looking through page by page like it was holy writ of some kind. Jess and Mike had been acting like it was the best book ever written by man. When she thought about it, both leaders of this group had like that book. She made a quick note to have the newest edition gift wrapped and sent with the mechs the next day. She had no idea how long she was distracted, but by the time she came back to the world she saw a problem.

Then she had to catch up with the group walking away from her. They could not leave the building, because all the doors had been locked now that it was after normal work hours. She opened the main door and wave to the group as they entered the sedan, that had dropped them off, and then it had waited till they were done with their shopping spree. She had no idea that it only had been called back while she had been inside the Showroom building, talking to her boss. Dawn just saw it as another example of wealth, that they had a nice car and driver waiting at their beck and call.

 _"It must be nice to have that much money."_ Dawn thought as she relocks and then tries to open the heavy glass and steel doors. _"Maybe I will be there soon._ " This sales commission would put her a lot closer to that level. She was now closer than she had been, when she got out of bed this morning. She thought that she had made over a years' worth of her average commissions, tonight.

The ride in the sedan back to the dropship, was not as fast as the ride out. All of the clubs, restaurants, and bars were all open and filled with people spending their money in those types of places. Those establishments were the life blood for the city, outside of the income that the drop port brought in with cargos. It was very common that a city's main clubbing and entertainment district would be very close to the drop ports, in most of human control space. It also made vehicle traffic hazardous in those areas.

The group in the back of the sedan did not say anything, as they made their way back to their mobile home. The driver took them right to the correct Mule class dropship without needing any direction. There were over a dozen of that class of ship spread out over the space port to night. The driver got out and opened the door, that Captain Copeland was exiting out of the transport with. Robert pulled out a bill from his jumpsuit pocket and handed it over to the driver. The Driver at first was going to refuse the tip. It was against company policy, to take money from a client while on the clock. That was until he saw the tip was a 100 C-Bill note. After picking up his slacked jaw, he just pocketed the money. He just nodded and said a simple "Thank you Sir." Before helping Jess, who was following Robert out the same opened door.

Lora saw the hand off but waited for the driver to reenter the sedan, and he had pulled away from the grounded Dropship. Robert had already turned and had taken a few steps toward the open personnel ramp of the dropship, when she spoke to him. "Robert, the current exchange rate for C-Bills to MC Dollars is a little over 1 to 4. Four hundred MC dollars is about what a driver like him makes, in a month." The tone was not mocking, it was just a question. Lora had even made her statement with a raised eyebrow.

Robert stopped, gave a slight shrug, and then gave an odd little toss of his head. "It was worth it to me. Think about how he had to wait, to even go to the bathroom, because we did not tell him how long we were going to be someplace. We sent him away, when we knew, that we were going to be in the showroom for a while. But it was the same driver, that we had been using all day. That alone was worth, what I gave him. That and the knowledge that I used a bank note, that we cannot spend back home. That makes doing the right thing, a lot easier. If it gets some goodwill for us? Then that would just be a bonus, in my book. You never know when we or you, might need some of that goodwill from a stranger or maybe from someone that this driver knows."

Robert started to walk up the entry way to the ship, then stopped. "Lora? We have a few empty bunks. If you want to stay here, instead of going all the way back to your place?" Robert stopped talking and looked down at his expensive pocket timepiece. "We have a meeting in seven hours, so much for getting back early so I could get some sleep." He gave a soft chuckle.

"No thank you, Robert. I have a room above the Café, for times like this. Thank you for the offer. Maybe if I had my overnight bag with me. What would Don think? If I showed up in the same clothes, as I had on the day before?" She turned and walked to the pickup point where another sedan, this one with yellow letters on the sides, was waiting for her.

Robert, and the other two continued into the dropship. As soon as the last person's feet hit the inside of the ship. The ramp and hatch closed and locked behind them with barely a sound. Mike went one way to his four-man cabin, and Jess went another. Maybe to sleep and maybe to work. No one would know for a while what they were going to do, now that they were back to their temporary home. Robert started climbing stairs after sets of stairs, going all the way to the top of the dropship. It was a long climb. There was an elevator, but Robert felt like he needed to work off some of the food he had been eating for the last two days.

Robert stopped by the bridge to check in on the status of his command, both on the ground and far out into space. There was nothing to report, that was out of the ordinary for a jumpship and drops-ship's crew during shore leave. After that short briefing. He walked back to his cabin for some much-needed sleep. The sun rose to early, so he could not take advantage of getting as much sleep as he needed.

Robert was sleeping so deeply, that he did not hear the alarms going off an hour after he crawled under the sheets. In fact, he was sleeping so soundly. That he did not wake up for his wakeup alarm, at all. One of the Bridge crew had to come down to his room and use the built-in speaker system on his hatch to successfully disturb his sleep. Robert had not wakened up well, after that blast of noise from his hatch. When he had not checked in? Jules had made the call to send someone down, so that he could make the morning meeting on time. As a longtime friend. He knew how long, down to the minute, it would take his friend to get ready for the meeting.

Notes

 **Shopping for workmechs at a major Show room**. It would be like looking for a John Deere, at your local Cadillac dealer.

 **The book on the drink cart?** It is like a current All of The Worlds Armor Jane's book, and you should see what one of the new ones cost to buy these days.

 **Why did I choose those particular workmechs**? I picked the ones that I could find the cost of. It was that simple.


	14. Chapter 14 18 Dec 3046

**Chapter 14**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **18 Dec 3046 0900**

 **The Dunianshire system**

It was with wet hair, that Robert entered the meeting room. He did not need to look at the clock to know that he was a whole two minutes late. He had not even been able to swing by and get some food, before coming here. He had a steaming cup of coffee, which he had made himself out of his emergency supply. It was something that he maintained in his room when he had only a short time to clean up. Robert does not bother to wait until he had gotten to his chair, before he started today's meeting.

"Sorry I'm late. Let's start, shell we. I don't know if I was dreaming last night. But did we have an alarm go off last night? The Officer of the Deck did not come to my cabin, so I have no idea if it was a dream or not. Robert was looking around the table to figure out if he needed to be worried, or not. It would be a bad thing, to be dreaming about alerts. It was also a bad thing, if he had slept through an alarm or a drill of an alarm for that matter.

The Captain of the White Rabbit looked at his commander and around the room. Robert caught the look, and he gave the man a nod to continue. That was all it took to get the ball rolling. "Sir. We had a vehicle that was acting strangely, since about noon yesterday. We think it showed up about an hour after my ship was contacted and asked, if we had some computers for sale."

The Dropship's captain looked down at some notes, before continuing. "The person on watch stuck to the script. They said that we did have some computers for sale. If they would like to come out, to inspect them. They could set up an appointment. The person asked how many we might want to sell, the capabilities, and how much we wanted for each of them. As we had talked about, before. The person was told we had ten systems for sale. They were given the correct specs and they were told, that we wanted ten thousand C-Bills per system. It was caveated, that the duty person was not sure about the price. It was clearly stated, that only the ship's captain could make that decision. That decision would happen only at the time of the inspection of the devices."

"A time was set, but the person or persons did not show at the agreed upon time. It was logged by me, that they were a no show. The contact number was active, when we tried to contact them about the missed appointment. No one received our information request, and we stopped trying after the third attempt. When we reviewed our security systems Tri-Vids, at the next shift change. That was when we noticed the vehicle. Not long after we started detecting communications coming from it, but it was encrypted, and it is on a range of frequencies that the locals are not known to use. In fact, they match up with an old SLDF scout system that is very closely related to the CBR Commsat. The only people we know that use this type of equipment are us, the clans, ComStar and now these guys. I think we know who it might be, and it is not us. By my orders. We kept an eye on them, just in case, for the rest of the day and into the night." The Captain was looking at his boss, but he was not worried. He had been both following "The Book" and his orders.

"After nightfall, we kept them on our passive and light amplification surveillance systems. I had one person that was tasked to keep an eye on them, at all times during the night. This duty rotated every hour. Also, a copy of all of the security feeds was copied to the ships main computer system every hour. Sometime after you got back, from your shopping trip. A six-person team exited the large transport, and we lost them in the night. We think that they were in some kind of combination sneak suits. We think that maybe they were a type of Camo/IR suits. That is because we could only track them, when they got close via directional passive electronics. We did not know what ship they might be trying to enter, but we thought they might be up to no good."

The Captain kept talking. "The Captain of the Maru and I thought. That they, or someone paying them, might be after the cash that MMM paid for those cannons. We both were a little surprised, when they kept angling towards the Rabbit instead of the Maru, when we did pick them back up on the passive's sensors. We let them make it all the way to the Personnel Entry Hatch Four, on my ship. They used some kind of electronic attack, which we have never seen before, to pop the hatch like it was unlocked. We did not know they popped the hatch, until they activated the pressure plate alarm at the hatch entry way. When the automatic alarm went off, and the lights and sound filled the ship. They fled at the run, and on foot. The original transport backed behind an intervening hangar, not soon after they released the ground team. We lost it on our security systems, when we lost a direct line of sight on the transport."

"The Lisbon Maru and White Rabbit, where able to track the six people using the active fire control systems on the dropships for some time after we lost them on our shorter ranged security systems. They dropped off even those systems, at the end of the main drop port landing area. Local Law enforcement was called, and they made a report. Our security team was waiting for this infiltration team in the engine room. But the intruders retreated to fast for our team to make contact, before they left the ship."

The Captain had a little grin on his face. "The locals were a little mad about us using our active fire control systems, while we were still in the drop port. They understood, but asked us, that next time we let the traffic control know the reason for that action before we power them up. We did not tell any of the locals, that we had been tracking the intruders before we went active. They were told that the first we knew something was up, was when the ships loss of air pressure alarm went off. They also think, that the thieves were after the money from the weapons sale to MMM. We did not tell them that the money was on the Maru and not us. It would appear, that they assumed it would be on the Blockade Runner, and not the cargo ship. That is if they were going after the money, and not the computers."

"According to one of the local law enforcement officers, that we have talked to. It has gotten around town, that we have a very large cash stash on one of the ships. They strongly suggested, that we move it into a bank of some kind or hire some powerful bodyguards. He might have been fishing for some overtime for his men, but he did not ask straight out and ask or offer his services. I did not know, if it was out of line to ask him for names."

The dropship's captain looked around the table. "I suggest that we increase the security protocol on each of the Drop ships. At least until we leave this planet. I also think that the Styx might want to do the same thing, out at the jump point. Sneak suits are not cheap, and combo suits are even harder to find. Then add the type of communications we picked up before. I think that they might also be a target for an assault out there. Sir? I do not think that they are going after the money. I now think that they were sent to get the computers".

Captain Copeland looked around the table. He knew why he had not been alerted about the strange van, and its odd transmissions. If he was alerted every time something like that had been observed, he never would get any sleep. He knew that it would have been brought up in today's meeting or even the meeting last night, that he had to cancel.

Robert gave a slight head nod to the Captain of the White Rabbit, before addressing the rest of the meeting. "Well, it looks like those Religious nuts are looking at us, again. This is nothing new, for us to have to deal with. It happens every time, we make a supply run to the Inner Sphere. I want the full counter intrusion protocols to be set, on all ships. I think that now we know were one of those messages went, that came from the Duke's planet."

Robert was rewarded with nods of agreement. Something like this had happened ever since the 2920 run. It had not taken long for the SLiE to come up with a way to "discourage" any unwanted attention and protect themselves at the same time. So far, every time they had done this. They had left a few bodies on the floor, and very rarely did the clan leave more of their own on the ground compared to the number of attacker's dead on the ground.

Robert looked down and frowned. "I think your right Captain, about who was behind that little intrusion. The White Rabbit has the most firepower, and she has the best targeting system that we have on the planet. So, she will be in charge of covering all areas, outside of the dropships. I want you to lock up, whatever they used on the hatch, to gain access to us. When we get back to the Styx? I want to know if we can make any counter measures for it, out of our own resources. Have we had any other issues with our people on shore leave last night?"

The two ship's Captains shook their heads in the negative motion. Everyone on the supply runs knew not to leave anyone alone, no matter what. They also knew that it was only a matter of time before someone or group, would try to take one of the smaller groups of their crews for hostages. It would be for a ransom, or it could be to torture them for information on the location of the lost supply point that the convoy must have found. It had happened before, and there had been more than a few lost lives suffered by the SLDF. In the past, they had enough firepower hidden away. So much so, that when each group would try something like that one time. But that one try? Well, it tended to end that group from being a threat to anyone else, for a very long time.

Robert hated this part. But it was all covered in the operation plans made by higher command, because of those previous experiences. There was not much room, for an even senior officer to change most of those plans for the whole convoy. "We need to start the clock. We will lift off in about 48 hours, from now. It will be no later than noon on that day. I will notify Traffic Control, that we will be leaving this planet in seven days."

This move was hoped to throw off anyone with a spy in the Traffic Control room, into thinking that they had longer to plan any bad deeds with a known timeline. It did not matter if the bad guys were going after a few battlemech engines, or a dozen leg actuators for medium mechs. They were all handled the same way.

Now Robert was going to let the rest of the room know, how the afternoon and evening had gone. "Cargo Master. We should start to receive the first few, of a dozen industrial mechs at any time. They should be starting to arrive before or close to noon, local. We had a good time finding items on our little shopping list. I think Command, back home, will be very pleased. I was surprised that we were able to find so many potentially useful machines, all at one stop."

This news got the room to perk up. No one had been told how well they had done last night. When word had been passed around that the evening meeting had been canceled, it was hoped that it was good news. "Lora has all the stats for them, all eleven of them."

When Robert looked around the table everyone was very happy at that news. "I'm sorry. My memory must be going, in my old age. We did not get eleven industrial mechs. We were able to get fifteen of them, with some spare parts."

Now it was Robert's turn to smile at the whole meeting. This was a lot better than they had hoped to have acquired, after only two stops on this run. "I will leave that job to the experts, on where to put them on what ships. Do we have an update on the crews that went out looking for the rest of the things on our little wish list?"

The Captain of the Maru was first to have a brief, to answer this question. "Lt. Vaun reports that he has been able to pick up all of the jumpship parts, which we were asked by name to bring back. He spent the full ten million C-Bills, and he completed the transfer last night to the seller of the parts. He will start receiving the parts today via the Mark VII, that was carried on the Styx. He will keep an eye out if anything else shows up on the market, which might be useful. He is doubtful of this. He thinks that he has bought all the readily available parts at his location, that can fit our needs. He sent a list of his purchases, if you would like to review it later. I already have the information, that I need to plan out were I will store them after our return to the jump point." The Captain of the Lisbon Maru stopped talking and waited for the convoy commander to say something.

Captain Copeland was thinking about what he had been told. He had been a dropship's captain before, but that was not his job on this mission. "I don't think so, Captain. At least I do not need that information, right now. We will need to be able to cross load his purchases onto one of the cargo ships, so please send a copy to both Cargo Masters. I do not want to have all of our eggs in one basket., if we can help it. Now, what about the ground teams?

It was again, the Captain of the Maru, who would speak first at the table. He had the largest number of crewmembers, which had gone out the day before on official business. "My crews went out to the different transport venders, as directed. It took them all day, but they did find almost two dozen of the 20ton flatbed trucks that we can use. Most of the ones they looked at were liquid or gas fueled based engines. They selected only the ones that are battery powered. Unfortunately, they did not find any fusion engine machines in their travels. They marked each of the vehicles, under the hood and they copied the VINs down. Now we will know if the vender has played any games with us. The ground teams did not talk about any prices for the trucks. They only told the Salesperson, that they were checking them out for their boss. They did not say how many that we might want. They are expecting someone to come out today to make an offer or to contact the lots, to set up a time for a senior person to come out and talk to them."

The Mule's Captain had a smirk on his face. "I think by opening business today. They will have gotten word about what you did at The Show Room. By the way? We were contacted by someone who said that they were a business news reporter before the meeting. They wanted to check some of the facts about us, and our shopping list. They were told that we do not discuss buying or selling of any cargos, at any time. They were told that it would be bad for business, if it got around that we talked about things like that." The Dropship's Captain gave a little grin and passed it around the table. Those few statements were a sure way to get a story published. They had done it this way before, and it had worked to their advantage six times out of eight on average.

The Captain of the Maru flipped a card and turned a little red. "Sorry sir. I forgot to pass along something. My teams had to go to quite a few different venders yesterday. But they did find one vender, that was not on the list. They had ten of the 50ton heavy cargo movers, which we were looking for. They refer to that class of truck as a medium class Mech Recovery vehicle. We do not know if this is a local designation, or what. At that same sales lot and store. They also found one super heavy 70ton class cargo mover. It looks to meet our needs of being interchangeable with the parts supply we already have set up at home for something like that."

The dropship captain passed a sheet of thin plastic, which had all the information about the trucks and the address for each of the two venders over to the more senior officer. Robert was the one who had to pay for the vehicles, before they could go any farther. There could only be one person on the blame line, and that was Captain Copeland.

Captain Copeland took the sheet, looked over it quickly from top to bottom. Then he folded the off green sheet into quarters, before putting it into the top right pocket of his ship's suit. He then looked over to the Captain of the White Rabbit and waited for his report. Robert was thinking that he needed to come up with a briefing order that was more codified.

The other ship's commander was ready, and after seeing "the look". He started his part of the briefing. "Sir, my crews were able to find two different venders, that had what we were looking for. The first vender had ten of the 50ton class Lessepps type dump truck and loader combination, which were for sale. This is the exact model that had been requested by name and mass, from High Command. The second vender had five of the huge 150ton class dump trucks that meet our needs, and they are willing to sell them. I have two teams that were planning to look at a few sedans in the 1 to 1.5ton range, to see if they fit for what was requested." The dropship's captain looked around, but he was finished with this report. Beside the attempted break in. He felt like he had little to report, and thus felt like he had not helped much in completing the mission.

Robert could see the uncertainty in the other Captain's eyes. That should not have been the case, and Robert felt like he needed to let the other officer know any help was good and needed help. Different types of people needed different types of leadership input, for them to grow. "That is good news! Please forward the contact information to Lora. Then we will see if we can pick up some of those, also while we are out today."

Robert let the fake smile leave his face, for a more "normal" look. "Lora found a mech that we will be trying to close the deal and buy out right, today. For those of you, who do not know? It is a new design of a Battlemech, and not just an old Star League or even older design that has been rebuilt. It's something new, and in fact. Its design is only about 20 years old, or less."

Robert started talking again, as the rest of the people in the room digested this information. "I would like to leave soon, to see about coming up with an agreeable price about that machine. Do we have any other issues, that I need to know about?" He looked around the table and the head gestures told him what he needed to know. "No? Then let's be about the day and be careful out there. I just want to put out one reminder. I think it's a statement from, I think one of the McEvedy's that was made on the second supply run. If ComStar is looking at us? We don't want to be too easy of a target for them." Before the group at the desk could rise, every eye turned to the convoy commander. It was not every day someone quoted one of the key leaders of their people, and then he started to snicker like a schoolgirl.

Robert could not help but give a soft laugh, and then told the rest of the group what had flashed into his mind. "What I would give, to have been able to bring along a squad of Nighthawk powered armor." This brought a round of soft chuckles of agreement, from the people around the table. Robert took control again. "I will be taking the same group as yesterday, with me. Mike knows and has already checked out the machine. I hope this will be the last mission I need him for, at least on this planet." Robert looked over at Mike's commanding officer and gave him a level look. "He has done an outstanding job. It should reflect on his evaluation, when this is done. I hope all of our late additions work out as well as he has, so far. I think that we will have to relook at, about not having a dedicated mech pilot on the mission." Robert put his hands on the table, he was not ready to release the meeting just yet.

"I also will be taking Jess. She will keep me out of trouble, or is that the other way around? I seem to be so forgetful, in my old age. I would like each of the dropship's Captains to make any supply arrangements, which might be needed for fresh food. Also think about what they may need today, to prepare for our lifting off and hitting the road again. You all can draw on the cash funds for each ship, as you need. Make sure everyone gets some time for some R and R, before we lift off planet. It might be a while before we are in a big drop port like this again."

Captain Copeland rose from the table and made his way to the hatch. Now he went and got him some food, to dilute the coffee in his stomach from the mess hall. Jess was right behind him. She looked even more tired, than he felt. A quick cold cut sandwich was all they got from the mess hall, mixed with more caffeine. Each person made sure to grab at least three cans of drinks that each had a hefty load of caffeine in them, on the way out of the empty mess hall. On the way to the personnel hatch, Captain Copeland stopped by the nearest ship's safe. Jess had her own items to take care of before she could leave the ship for any length of time.

Robert pulled out a metal brief case and started to count out stacks of C-Bills. With each stack counted, he put them in the metal case. After he made sure of the final count? He updated the inventory in the safe, before closing and locking it again. The next stop was the armory. This was to draw four side arms and holsters, for the weapons. And again, he signed on the inventory list that he had the weapons before locking the heavy metal hatch when he was done. With these errands done. He made his way to the main personnel hatch of the dropship.

He exited the last set of stairs, and almost ran over Jess coming down the ship's hallway. Now with a second person, he adjusted the load he was carrying. He handed two weapons and matching holsters, over to Jess. After putting the shoulder holster rig on, she inserted the SunBeam laser pistol into the opening. Robert did the same with his M&G Flechette, which someone in the old Lyran Commonwealth had designed before Robert had been born. Now fully armed with the weapons ready to use. The two people finished the short trip to the dropship exit, and the rest of the group that was waiting for them.

Mike and Lora were waiting for them, when the pair exited the dropship on the burnt tarmac. Mike instinctively took the weapon that Jess offered him, along with the holster to go around his waist. Captain Copeland was about to pass Lora a small slug thrower and a clip holster, but she stepped back from the weapon and man. She looked at him like he had a horn growing out of the top of his head. She clenched her leash tightly in both of her hands.

"Robert! Why would I want to carry that, in the city?" Asked Lora as she pointed to the offered weapon like it was an armed nuclear warhead. Her heart was beating so hard, she thought it could be seen threw her shirt. Her mother had tried to get her to learn how to shoot, when she was younger. Her mother had loved guns, and she wanted her child to feel the same. It had not worked, as her mother had intended.

"After that attack last night? I am not taking any chances, while we are out today. Not with the money I'm carrying to pay for cargos or landing fees. I am not going to add to that price, with our lives. If someone is thinking about getting aggressive with us? We need to be ready." That is what Robert said, but he patted the side of the briefcase to remind her of what was planned for today. She knew all about the cash he had to operate with thanks to MMM, and they had not talked about paying for any landing fees in the last meeting. She quickly put 2 and 2 together.

She took the hint of the pat on the case. One of the things that a person in her line of work had to deal with, was eavesdropping. She also had been around the receiving end of more than one parabolic mike in her life. She reached out and took the two items, from the mission commander. She might not like handguns, but that did not mean that she did not know how to use one. She turned and started walking towards a car, which was waiting not far away. All the while she clipped the holster on the waist band on her black slacks.

The driver was the same man from the day before. As with yesterday, very few words were passed between the driver and the group in the back of the VIP mover. The driver did not make a comment, about the side arms each person had exposed on their hips or in shoulder rigs. They were on the way out of the drop port, with less than ten words said between the entire group of people. The driver just had a smile on his face. He had heard about "the security" issue the drop port had the night before. When he had come out to the drop port, he had half expected to find his task canceled. That would have been bad, because he would not have been paid for his time.

Robert was looking out of the sedan window, as it made its way through the city. He was trying to see if anyone might be following them. He knew in his mind, that it was a futile attempt. How could someone like him, spot someone, who most likely was a pro following them? This was why he almost did not see the large flatbed truck, which was parked close to Don's home. It was close, but there were a pair of turns before you arrived at Don's.

If Robert did not know what the large wheeled truck might be used for, he was informed when they passed the cab of the truck. In bold white letters was Safety First Mech Movers. It had been painted on the side door, and all the way across the front of the massive vehicle. When the dark colored sedan pulled up to the house? Don was opening the door and rolling onto the front landing of the home. He waited for them to walk the short distance from the sidewalk to his location at the base of the little home-built ramp, that let him access or exit his home without aid. He used a volume that was just a little too much for the distance, that it needed to travel.

"Well it's nice to see that you're on time. It is just like proper military people should be. Are you ready to talk, or are you here to look at her again?" Don was rocking his wheelchair back in forth, out of nervous habit. He was nervous, and he had an almost wild look in his eyes. This had been the closest, that he had ever been to selling his machine.

Robert could not tell whether Don was ether still drunk from the night before, or if he was just massively hungover. Robert could understand that, and he did not judge the man one way or the other. How would he feel, in this man's position? "Oh, we are here for business. But if you're not ready? We can come back a little later, when you're ready."

Robert stopped walking and the others stopped almost at the same time. From the looks on their faces. They did not know if the Captain was joking, or not. The good part was neither did Don. He was about to start freaking out. His eyes shot all the way open, and he stopped rocking from side to side with his wheelchair. When Robert looked around, he had to fight down a smile. You could not see the mech transport from were either man was standing.

"Oh no! I'm ready. I have the title all ready, and she is ready to be move. That is as long as we can come to an agreement on a price." He realized that he said too much and his mouth clamped shut, with an audible click.

Don was sweating more now, but at least the random movements left and right had stopped. He did not want to blow this chance, but he also did not want to be taken advantage of by these visitors. He knew deep in his heart, that this might be the last chance to sell the mech. And it would be the last chance that he would get to have enough money for the life changing surgery, he wanted so badly. He rolled himself back into his home, leaving the door open for the others to follow him.

Robert looked at the others and smiled before entering the house, which smelled of a mix of urine and stale beer. It was a smell Robert had not noticed the day before. Maybe he was distracted by the tall battlemech in the center of the room yesterday. Today Don had four chairs set out for people to sit in. He had set them up, so that his back was to the 35ton battlemech and everyone else would be facing it. After everyone was seated. It was quiet, no one was talking. It did not last long before Don started to shift in his chair, breaking the desired stress causing set up that the seating arrangement was meant to do in the first place.

Finally, Don had enough and spoke first. He had lost the attempt at a power play against a master of the game. "Okay Captain Copeland. I have the machine, and you have the money. So how much are you going to pay for her?"

"Don, you have your facts a little off. You have to sell it to us. We, on the other hand, do not have to buy it. We will be leaving in a few days, no matter what happens here today. After were gone, you might be able to sell it to the next merchant that comes along. Or you can rent it to the local defense force on some kind of a long-term plan. That is, if they just don't take it from you, and have some local judge say you are too unstable to have it anymore. The question is how much do you want for it today and be done with all of your headaches."

Don was not the most experienced negotiator in the world, but what the off-world Captain had said was true. That is except for the local military part. They were just as likely to confiscate his machine first, as pay any real money for its use. "I want three point five million C-Bills deposited into my bank account, and then she is all yours. You will take care of any fees or cost of transporting it from my house to the drop port or were ever you want it."

Robert was thinking that the price Don was asking, was not that far out of line for his machine. Still, it was more than Robert wanted to pay for it. "Don, I know how much this machine cost new and fresh from the factory. We both know it's not three point five million C-Bills. I was thinking that two-point eight C-Bills is more fitting of a price, for a light mech. And yes, I will be paying in C-Bills and not in the local paper."

Don's face turned red, and then it looked to turn more purplish than red. His lips were in a tight line, but he did not say anything until the color in his face was back to a more normal shade. "Captain you're not going to find this type of mech anywhere else. That is unless you go halfway across the Sphere. I will tell you, that even if you do that? It will not be in this good of a shape, when you do find one for sale. Three point two million is more than a fair price out here at the end of civilized space, for a top of the line 35ton scout killer mech like this one."

Now it was time to bring out the big hammer. "Don, yes. It is rare. Now how will I find any spare parts for it? More importantly, whoever I sell it to. They will have to have spare parts for it, and as you say. It will be a bit of a travel delay, in getting any of those parts. Do you know how much money we're talking about right now?"

Don's reply to the question, was to give Robert a blank stare. This showed to Robert, that Don had no idea what he was talking about. Robert got up and cleaned off an end table and sat it beside the man in the wheeled chair. With his briefcase opened in such a way, that Don could not see what was in it. Robert started taking out bundled stacks of 100 and 500 c-bills notes. This was part of the money that MMM had paid for those cannons the other night. Soon the table was covered with money, and the piles kept getting taller and taller. Don's eyes kept getting bigger and bigger, as more and more bundles of bills were pulled out and put on display.

Finely Robert stopped stacking packs of bills on the now very shaky end table. "Don this is two point nine million C-Bills. That is almost twelve million MC dollars, in local value. This is what I'm talking about right now. It is in cash money, right now. Is this more to your liking? You can spend it any way you want, and no one will be the wiser."

Don did not move a finger. He had seen the weapons on their hips, and he did not have one close enough to be of any use. The stack of money was huge, and it was an overpowering display of wealth. Robert did not want to take advantage of the mentally and physically hurt man, so he decided to sweeten the pot a little more. "Fine a little more then, but this is my final offer three million, worth of C-Bills. Right here and right now. Oh, and I know that this mech cost two point nine right off the factory floor. You're getting a hundred k, for your time and effort of keeping it up for the last few years." Robert pulled one of the gold bars that he had picked up from Duke Terry and put it on top of the display of cash. It was like a crown on a man, as it sat on the tallest of six stacks of bills.

Don was really sweating and after a few long seconds. He pulled his eyes away from the stacks of life changing money. It was with very shaky hands, that he rolled over to one of the shelves that had his hand built mechs models on display. He selected one that was kind of hidden from view, and he popped the top off with a quick twist of the wrist. For more than a few seconds the group thought he might be going for a weapon, and then maybe try to take what money he could grab and run. Instead Don pulls out a rolled piece of thick off yellow vellum, from the handmade object. After rolling back to the group. He looks around, the only table within easy reach was full of paper and gold. So, he smiles up to the Captain.

"Well, this is a first. I don't have any place to write, because the only table I have, is full of money. That is a nice problem to have, don't you think." He gave a kind of manic laugh for a hand full of seconds, before he finally stopped.

"I can't remember ever having that problem, before." He turned and rolled back to the shelf and pushed some of the handmade projects out of the way. He signed his name on the title line of the document, with slightly shaking hands.

Robert walked over and signed his name on the line required, for finishing the legal transfer of the machine. Robert stuck out his hand and the two men shook hands, closing the deal. Robert made eye contact with Lora, who then pulled out a small communication device. She contacted the mech hauler outside and said that they were ready. She told the driver to pull around the back of the building, so that Mike would be able to walk the machine out. Then they would let the pros load and send the machine back to the drop port to be off loaded from one of the cargo carriers. One of Robert's people would put the machine into one of the cargo bays on a dropship.

Now that it was done, and before it was going to get busy again. Robert wanted to relax a little. "Don, I think that we will step out and let you take care of the money. You might want to put it in a safe place. The hauler will be here in a few minutes. Why don't we wait out back, until you're ready for us to move her out of your building?" The other three joined Robert on his feet, when they heard what he had planned to do.

The group moved out the back of the building, giving the wheelchair bound man some privacy to stash his booty. That was when it turned out, that there was a lift to the upper floors. Don had a heavy cardboard box that he was happily singing to himself and filling with the money, which was on the table. Robert did not know if Don had a proper safe in the building or not. He really didn't care, but he thought that it was standard to have a safe of some kind in this type of building. Buildings that rented out living space, that also could hold a multi meter, multi ton, multi million dollar war machine like most other people would store a wheeled transport. One they would or could not take to their job or any eating place around town.

The 50ton mech hauler was just finishing getting into position, when the great door at the rear of the building started to open on squeaky rollers. Don wheeled himself outside into the sun, as the massive wall was rolled up towards the top. Mike walked back into the building and started going up the metal ladder to the mech cockpit. Robert could not take his eyes off of the vaguely wolf shaped head. When the hatch clanked shut, he was able to break the spell.

Robert walked over to the now Dispossessed mech warrior. Robert was watching as Mike maneuvered the 35ton war machine, so that the lifting equipment would be able to help with securing the machine for transport. There was not much a Jumpship commander could do to help load a battlemech on to the wheeled transport. Well, he could get in the way and be crushed, but that would not fall under the label of being "helpful".

Robert was now standing beside the now mechless pilot. "Don, what are you going to do if the surgery is successful? And you can walk again or maybe even pilot a mech again?" asked Robert without looking down at the other man. Robert was watching him out of the corner of his eye, to see what if any reaction he would give. Robert had no idea why he asked the question, but after it had left his mouth. He realized that he cared about the response.

The man looked up at the jumpship captain. "You know? I have been thinking about that question a lot lately. Before the accident. All I wanted to do was pilot one of these, and try to blow someone else out of their mech. I would talk to troopers who were blown out of their machines, in bars or in the infantry units. All they would talk about, was wishing that they could get behind the controls of a mech again. They would go on and on about what they would give, to do that again. They had a god like feeling behind the controls, which they dearly missed. I thought I would be the same way, if it happened to me."

The man shrugged his shoulders, but now was looking at his old machine again. "I might have been that way, for the first few months. Then I don't know? Something clicked in my head. How many other people had I put in a chair like mine, or worse killed them? I don't think, that I can do that to anyone again. Not after what I have been through." His head was shaking side to side, as he made the last comment. He was quiet again for a bit, and then started talking on his own.

"There has been a building boom going on in the core worlds. More homes and factories are being built. I have even heard, that they have started rebuilding entire cities. Some of the ones that have been abandoned since the Star League fell. If they can fix me? I'm thinking that I will pick up a construction mech of some kind with the money I have left over, and then get a travel ticket back home. Maybe I will just get a ticket back to someplace within or near, the old Lyran Commonwealth part of the new Federated Commonwealth. I could start a formal school, on how to use those different types of work mechs and construction machines. You know like those mech academies in the core worlds, but it will be about rebuilding and supporting cities and not blowing them apart. I'm done burning them down. You know when I was younger? I was brought up using those types of machines, until I graduated to real mechs. I was very good at their controls, growing up. I even was given a few awards in school, beating everyone on my home planet for year after year."

He stopped talking again, and he was now looking at nothing. "Yea, that's it. I just really want to build something, instead of just blowing them up." He gave a snort, that rocked his whole body. "All of that is just wishful thinking, until I find out if they can fix the damaged to my spine or not. Even if they can't fix the balance issue, so I can use a brain bucket. I can still work the controls on a work mech without one. I don't have any family alive, anymore. I just have to take it one step at a time." Don's voice was trailing off, getting softer and softer. He had hope and he was scared that it would evaporate, like it had done so many times over the last year.

Robert looked down at the damaged man beside him. Don did not seem to notice the change in the way he sat in the chair. _"Well that is, different. I did not think that he would change that much, due to an injury_." Robert was thinking and planning at a mile a second. Robert let the other man daydream for a little while. When he felt the time was right, he spoke to Don.

"Don! That is some plan you got there. If you don't mind, when we leave here. Can you leave your contact information with Lora? I would like to see how it all turns out, next time we stop by. Or maybe I can send a message, to see how you're doing?" Robert stuck his hand out towards the other man. This time it was not a business handshake, but a true friendly gesture.

Don looked up and took the offered hand, he gripped it firmly. It was the grip of someone who was a lot more confident, than the one grip he had used just an hour before. "I will Captain. I will make sure to leave a way for you to contact me. You know? Maybe I will put together a traveling academy. All I would need, is an old Mule class and six or seven industrial mechs. I could use a few contacts, that had access to a jumpship or knows their way around the space lanes, every so often."

Don looked down with a shocked look on his face and released Robert's hand. Don started patting his pockets. "That was a good idea. I need to write that one down. Startup cost would be huge, but workable. I might have to start small, maybe with just renting a Buccaneer or something." The man mumbled to himself, and then Robert made a little smile.

 _"That was a good idea. You could travel around working on different planets and for different Houses as you saw fit. While you were doing that? You're finding out all kinds of information, and maybe a few secrets. They would have to send someone back, to get the information to any decision makers. They also would have to be someplace where they could then pass along the information and experience, to get back to the home world_." Robert stopped his thinking right then. What if the Dragoon's had been doing just that? He knew that he had not been given access to all of the files about the Inner Sphere. He never would have had time to read them. It was not like he was going to have a year between the time he left home and his first contact with the Inner Sphere to catch up on the intel files.

"Don, we have to go after I make sure the hauler's driver knows where to go. I have to look at some more cargos, before we can break for the noon meal. Good luck, and I wish you success. We will be in touch." Robert started to walk towards the waiting hauler.

Jess took his spot and started talking to Don. Robert shot a few looks over his shoulder at the pair. He was betting that Jess was borderline grilling Don on anything he might know about a list of subjects. But Robert was betting that it was going to focus a lot on anything related to the unit called Wolf's Dragoons. Robert took his time and chatted with the driver for almost half an hour, before he started heading toward the rental car.

Lora and Jess fell in behind Robert, as he walked to their ride. They waited in the transport, till Mike joined them in the nice comfortable seats. The Mech hauler pulled out and the sedan followed, going away from Don's rented home. Robert looked back, through the back window. He saw that Don had started to lower the massive rolling door, before the view was cut off by a turn in the road. Robert wondered how long it would be before Don lifted off from the drop port, or had a knife put into his neck for the money in that house. It was not his problem, but he did hope that the man would get a second chance in life. He seemed like he was about to truly make his mark on the universe.

The Mech Hauler and its load went one way after reaching the main road, and the sedan went the other way. The first vehicle vender they stopped at was for the cargo trucks, which the clan badly needed. It was a hard negotiation to set the price. The vender knew that Copeland had a bucket load of money, and they wanted to have a larger cut of it. Still they almost failed. That had been when the vender tried to switch out trucks and load trucks on the carrier, that had not been checked by Captain Copeland's crews yesterday. Robert and his team watched as a vehicle transporter was being loaded with his latest buy. They made a show of doubled checking each vin and for the hidden UV mark that might or might not have been in that location.

Robert called back to the Cargo Masters and let them know that a dozen large flatbeds full of trucks were on the way to them. With the manager of the truck sales lot still in ear shot. He advised the Cargo Master to be sure to double check the VINs, when they were delivered to the cargo ships. Just to be on the safe side, and in case someone wanted to play games with them again. That had not gone over well with the sell's vender. While Robert was talking, he was letting his hand fall to his sidearm. That had stopped any further issues from developing.

Robert was able to talk the vender down to twenty-five thousand C-Bills for each of the trucks, to be loaded and shipped to the drop port. Robert was thinking that he should have lowered the price offered per truck, after the vender had tried to change the vehicles that had been agreed upon before. Instead he had gotten a good-sized load of assorted spare parts for the attempt to cheat them, for free. Robert did not know what was in the four shipping containers, other than that they were parts and some special time saving tools to work on that type of vehicle.

Lora made a note never to use this dealership again, and to post threw her network, about the attempt to cheat her clients. She would go into some detail about the different ways that had been tried today. She did not say, for anyone not to use them, in her notice of buyer beware. She only said about how, they had been handled. By the end of the week? This truck sales lot business was down fifteen percent, and it was falling fast.

The drive to the second vender was longer in travel time. It was on the opposite end of town; from the first vender they had stopped at. It seemed that the news of what happened to the first vender they went too, had spread faster than they could drive across town. It might have been via the rumor mill or by some other means of information transfer. This just proved, to Robert, that the old grape vine had an ability to self HPG message to anywhere in the known universe. For one of the few times in his life, Robert did not care about the speed of rumor.

The second vender had the trucks out and on display in a neat row, and they did not play any games with the visitors. Well, no more than any other used car salesmen might try on any given day. None of the wheeled transports they bought today, were in a used condition. They were all brand new machines, with only a hand full of hours reading on the engine wear gauge. Some of them still had plastic covers on them, to protect the seats and side mirrors for transport. They spent about half the time being compared to the last vender, and it was a whole lot more enjoyable for everyone involved at this location.

Lora transferred the money from the bank account to the vender. Robert was very pleased at the speed they were able to get this done. They had spent way less than half the time at the second vender, when compared to the first vender today. The price for this batch of trucks was not that great, but it was about what was the normal dealer market value on this planet. The Vendor knew what he had, and what they were worth. They still did not get full asking price on the trucks, but they got a fair deal with a nice profit to mark down in their books. The third and fourth vender stops went even faster. Robert only needed long enough to double check the VINs and get them to come down to an agreeable price. When they were done, it was time for lunch.

 **Why sneak suits**? Sneak suits have been a key to SF work since TRO 3026. A combo sneak suit was cutting edge or even bleeding edge, until the clans showed up. It would be the "go to" item for a little B and E. If that fails? Then you might pull more unique tools out of the toolbox to do some not so nice work.

 **The Alarm**. It would make since that a dropship would be sensitive to air loss, so all you would need to do is over pressure your hull. When someone opens a hatch, then the air rushes out and the loss of pressure alarm would sound. It is how tanks fight in an NBC threat area today.

 **Why civilian cars**? The SLiE have been on a war footing for a while now. What they had been using to make private transportation, now has been repurposed for a war time need. Try to find a 1943 car or nonmilitary truck. There are none. But people would still want them, things break, you will still have your odd wrecks, and you have a growing population. Plus, the Colonials did not bring any cars with them.

 **Detail.** No, I will not be going into this much detail at very stop or for each purchase.

 **A little history of the SLiE**. They relocated their population form the vicinity of McEvedy's Folly, after spending a few decades gathering supplies. They settled on New Circe in 2870


	15. Chapter 15 afternoon 18 Dec 3046

**Chapter 15**

 **After noon 18 Dec 3046**

 **The Dunianshire system**

They went back to Le Chiffre's for some food to fuel their tired bodies. It was in the middle of the lunch rush hour, when they arrived. There was a line out the door and people sitting on side benches, all waiting to be seated inside to eat. The group was given some strange looks by those waiting, when Captain Copeland and his group walked straight to the Hostess desk. They were not given a number but taken right away into the main dining area without waiting, like the rest of the crowd had been doing. This caused more hostile looks to be sent their way.

The group of four were sat at Lora's favorite table. This time they told the wait staffs for the cook just to make whatever they like, and that would be fine with them. It was an enjoyable meal, with a lot of jokes and small talk between quickly forming friends. It was towards the end of the meal, that Captain Copeland returned the group back to the job at hand. It was a nice break, but they had work to do. It did not help, that now. They had a truncated timeline to get all of that work done.

Robert looked over at Lora, as the almost empty plates were being taken away and their drinks were refilled. "Lora, you said that your mother had some stuff for us. It looks like we are mostly done with the tasks planned out for the day. So, if you don't mind? It would be nice to see what she collected for us over the years."

Robert was careful not to say what planet or group he was talking about. This was a public place, and there were strangers literally sitting only a few feet away from them. This was the first time Robert had seen the restaurant this full of patrons. Robert remembered that Dawn had known, that Lora was closely associated with this place. Robert did not think, that it would take long for that information to become more widely known to a long list of people. Almost every sale they made was going to be on the public record, in between 24 and 48 hours. And then there were the rumors, that should be flying around by now.

Lora looked down and started working on her computer for a few seconds, and then started talking as she flipped digital pages with little taps on the screen. "It looks like everything is clear and running on schedule. I don't see why we can't. It will take some time to get there." She shoots Jess a look, and then raised one eyebrow at Robert.

"The warehouse is on land, which was my grandmothers for I have no idea how long. It takes about thirty to forty-five minutes to get out there, from here. That is, if we don't run into any bad traffic or accidents along the way. Coming back is faster because rush hour will be going the other way, until we hit the drop port traffic. There are a couple of liners taking off today, and that always plays havoc with road and air traffic until they are gone."

Jess gave a slight nod of her head at what Lora and Robert had said, and then added her two cents in. "Well, I for one think that it is a great idea. We will still, have to make some arrangements to have it delivered to the drop port, after we check it out first. I don't think we need Mike for this, and they might need him at the Lisbon Maru, when all of those workmechs arrive." Jess liked Mike, but it made more sense, that he would be more useful back at the Drop port. He was young, and he had been spending a lot of time with someone from "The Families". That could be a bad thing or a good thing. If he decided to become one. Then he would know what to expect. The bad part was that the secret of the Families being in the Inner Sphere was very closely guarded. Everyone in SLIC knew, that familiarity breeds contempt for secrecy.

Robert looked at Jess, and he could see the cress fallen Mike out of the corner of his eye. "That makes sense, so let's go people."

They got up from the table and started to move towards the stairs going down to the main door. Jess caught movement out of the corner of her eye, and that clicked on her alert reflexes to full power. Someone was watching them. It was a younger man, and he had been trying to hide a communication device from view of the walking group. If he had just used the thing, and not try to hide it from them as they walked by? Jess probably would not have taken notice of the movement. When Jess tried to make eye contact with first the person trying to hide the device, and then the other male sitting at the same table. Both of them would look away from her, with quick jerks of the head. They acted like they were trying to protect their identity from her. This was atypical behavior, much less typical behavior in a crowded restaurant.

When they left the café, but before they had made it to the taxi. Jess asked Lora if Le Chiffre had any security cameras in the dining area or in the other main traffic zones of the restaurant. She was disappointed to find out that they did not. The people who owned the café thought that security cameras in the dining area would be bad for business. She was right, but that was not going to make Jess's job easier on finding out who their tail might be, or who they might be working for. The hover car was waiting for them at a nearby parking spot, and they were able to quickly get out of sight from the crowd that was milling around the outside of the cafe'.

The group was almost to the drop port, when Robert's comm buzzed for attention. It was the Cargo Master from the Maru. They needed Mike back, to help move all the machines that were being dropped off to be loaded on to the ships by MMM marked transports. The Cargo Master seemed very relieved that the Captain was already almost back to the ships, when he had asked for help. As the sedan was pulling into the drop port. They were passed by a pair of empty mech haulers heading out with the massive MMM logo painted on the sides and on the tops of the empty flatbeds. This keyed up a memory that Robert might have forgotten, and now it was something that might be important. It took him awhile to work through it, by then they could see the two dropships.

"Lora, did I ever take care of that sales offer for fifty medium class lasers?" Robert could not remember if he had taken care of that order or not, and now he was mentally kicking himself. He had gotten all wrapped up in the excitement of buying big ticket items.

Lora and Jess both turned in their seats to look at the Captain. Lora blinked before answering the question. "I sent the payment to MMM, as soon as the funds were in the bank to cover their total cost. They were set on the price, but we only paid what MMM is charged for the weapons, when they are billed from that manufacturing subsidiary. They should be at the drop port today or early tomorrow. I told the Cargo Master about it, so he would not be surprised when they show up. I must have forgotten to tell you, sorry Robert."

"Not your fault, Lora. You could have told me, and I simply forgot that you did so. It's not like we have not had a few long days, sense we landed on this planet." A round of light laughing followed the statement by the senior officer, from the rest of his attached group. He was 68, but he looked to be in his mid-forties, and he was the oldest person in the sedan.

When the sedan pulled around one side of the White Rabbit. The group in the VIP transport could see bipedal machines standing all over the place. They looked like great metal statues on a god sized chess board. Robert counted six, to include the Wolfhound mech from his seat in the back of the hover sedan. The last mech almost looked like it was standing watch on a herd of sheep. The Cargo Master was walking towards the still moving sedan at the quick step. When the driver came to a stop. The drop ship crewman opened one of the doors and looked into the passenger compartment. He was in a hurry and sweating out bucket loads of water from his head. He was the image of a man in deep work distress.

The man looked into the compartment making eye contact with each person in the back of the sedan, before saying anything in a silent salute. "Sir! I'm glad your back. That yard ape of a Power loader driver is okay, with that type of Machine. Anything else? And he is a danger to life and limb. I'm not only talking about his life, but everyone in the whole drop port. He tripped over his own mechs feet, when he was moving one of those Rock Hounds."

He could see that the Captain was about to get out of the sedan, to most likely check on the machine and pilot. "Don't worry sir. He is okay. He only got a little knock on the head, and that had come from the ship's Captain when he gave it to the ape. The machine lost some armor plate on the right side, but we will be able to fix it in a few hours. I was able to get it back onto its walking pads with me at the controls and the Power Loader helping me get her off the ground again. I know I'm not good enough to get it into the cargo bay. Not without breaking it, or something important on the ship while I'm moving it."

Robert settled back into the deep car seat, he looked over at the now red-faced Mike. "Well Mike? Looks like you have your work cut out for you, for the rest of the day. When you're done? How about teaching that klutz how to pilot something else besides the loader? That way he can be something else, besides being only a halfway good pilot with a Power Loader. You never know, when we might need two of you to get stuff done in a hurry."

The Captain was smiling at the younger man, who was already reaching for the handle to open the door on his side of the sedan. "Cargo Master, how is it going? I can't stay. We have some more cargos to look at. Also, I want you to come up with a list of one or two people. Ones you think that we can train up on industrial mech piloting, in a short amount of time. It will not be in their personnel jacket, I already looked."

The Cargo Master sat on the open-door ledge of the sedan, to answer his boss. "We are doing okay, so far. The two Space Worthy containers of lasers came in. Each one had twenty-five, 1ton lasers packed in it as it was supposed to. We already have them inspected and we had them loaded onto the ship as soon as we could." He stopped talking for a second, and he had a questioning look on his face. After a few seconds, he decided that it was okay to ask his question.

"Sir, did you know that they are all new built weapons? The ones I checked; all have date stamps of being built this year." The Cargo Master knew that this information must be passed along. It might not seem like a lot, to most people from the Star League. Then again, this was only one shipment. That would mean that a large production run had been made, if these weapons were the extras. This was something they had not expected to find, after reviewing all the information from the previous resupply runs. The SLiE had been the ones selling weapons, used weapons at that. Those weapons had been traded for top dollar. Now to find that the locals had new built weapons, and enough of certain types to sell the excess off? That was a major bit of new information.

Jess looked at the Captain and the Cargo Master, and after making eye contact with each of them. She threw a head motion towards the driver. Robert did not show that he had seen it. That is until he opened his mouth. "That is a surprise, thank you Master."

Her glance toward the driver was the only hint that the Cargo Master needed to drop that line of talking, that second. The Cargo Master caught the hint. He bowed his head and pulled himself the rest of the way out of the sedan. He closed the door behind him. As he turned, he started yelling at his crew to get back to work. As soon as the man was a safe distance from the sedan, it pulled away from the two dropships. It took the driver some skill, to pull away. Not with all of the expensive machines in the local area waiting to be taken care of and loaded into the huge cargo carriers.

Mike was already moving one of the industrial mechs up the only loading ramp, which was open to the rest of the world. After entering the ship. He would move the massive machine to a lift system, that would take it to whatever cargo bay the Cargo Master wanted this machine stored in. It would be up to Mike to maneuver the machine into the proper place in the cargo bay after the lift stopped. Then some of the other crewmembers could secure the machine, so that it would not fall over before they got home.

The other crew would tie it down, in such a way so that it was secure, even if the ship was pulling the maximum g's it could with evasive actions thrown on top. The cargo could not be allowed to move, even an inch. You did not want any cargo moving around, without some adult supervision, at the best of times much less in an emergency. That was how you lost ships. That had been the case even before the first dropship had been built. If something was moving fast enough, and had enough mass? It would open the ship's hull to space. Or it might break something, which the ship needs to keep the soft bits alive inside the vessel in the unforgiving deep black.

The route going out of the Drop port going to Lora's mom's warehouse took them on the major routes or traffic arteries of the largest city on the planet. It was rated as a high-speed route, and it still took almost an hour to reach the location they needed or wanted to go to. Soon they were outside the city into steadily growing open plots of undeveloped land. They took an exit off the high-speed route that was only marked as number 135. The property was a massive plot of land, for someone who was raised living on jumpships, dropships, or in a larger city. This plot of land was made up of hundreds of acres of pasture, trees, and a few large barns. It was about the size of a well to do hobby farm. It was like a dozen other parcels of land that they had passed already.

Lora directed the driver to one of the more central, of the Barns this property held. She had the driver park in the shade provided by the building and a nearby bunch of native trees. The three people exited the sedan, but the driver remained as always. The cover story was that Lora was showing the two off worlders her family home. It was supposed to be some kind of a friendly reward, for all the money she was making off of them. The locals knew, that only the very rich could own land larger than a few hectares. Lora took almost an hour showing Robert and Jess around the property. It was enough time wasted, to make anyone trailing and spying on them go to sleep. The third barn, that she took them to, was the "Warehouse". It did not look any different than the other half dozen barns on the property, from the outside.

The Warehouse was large for a ranch building, but small for a warehouse. That was good, because warehouses where known to get raided. As a general rule barns did not get raided, all that often. Normally it was only after the raiders found something else from somewhere else, which would lead them to a given barn to look at more closely and raid it.

The barn had an open center area that formed a 9m tall alleyway going down the length of the barn. On each side of this alley, were two decks or floors of protected storage areas above ground level. There also was one level of storage, underground. To get to the lower level, Lora's mom had installed a lift to go from the ground level to all floors of the modified Barn. It could carry personnel or heavy items to any of the levels. The bottom level was where they started looking at all of the things that Lora's mom had collected for the clan. There was no way to "see" the underground level. You had to find the stairs or see the heavy-duty industrial lift and know that it would go down one more level. It was pretty good camouflage.

Robert was looking around the dark room, when Lora flipped a switch and turned on the light bars that ran down both sides of the room. The underground room was full of cloth and heavy plastic covered machines. And that was about all Robert could tell from where he was walking. "Lora do you have an inventory, by chance?" It was over whelming looking at items, that for the life of him. Robert had no idea what they did or could do.

While Robert continued looking around the underground room. Lora had picked up an old-style clip board with hard copy paper on it. Lora's mom had not trusted putting this information anywhere, that someone else might be able to access it remotely. Lora was looking down at the neat hand-written notes on half a dozen yellowed pages, and a little tear was in the corner of her eye while she started reading down the list of items.

"There are five of the 6m long horizontal metal cutting Lathes with four different cutting heads built into each of the lathes. There are five complete CNC machines. Each with a 6m square working area. Each of the machines comes complete with a full set of cutting heads, whatever that means. Two of the CNC's are twenty-one axis machines, and the other three are marked as "only" being eighteen axis machines. From what I could find out. All five of the CNC's were recovered from a flattened Battlemech factory in the FWL, from sometime back around the middle of the First SW. They were cleaned, rebuilt and are fully operational, when mom picked them up. I don't' think that any power or maintenance has been done on them since they were put down here." Lora looked back down at the yellowed paper again, before she started talking. Her voice was starting to crack, just a little as she spoke about her mother's life work.

"There are two complete sets of computer-controlled optics grinders, for making lasing lenses. According to the notes? They have the software loaded to make lenses for anything from Blazer Rifles to the standard largest laser carried by mechs in the Inner Sphere. There are metal bending machines, drill presses, myomer twisters and setters."

She had to take another breath before she continued. She was fighting not to cry. This was only the second time, that she had been down here, since her mother had died. She had never completely gone down the list of items. She just had a faint idea of who it was for, and that was it, when she had first looked at this list. Now she was glad that she did not just start to sell it off, when she had first found out about what this building held.

"Upstairs? We have boxes of different types of machine tools and bits, or parts for them. She has masses for each of the lots, which she marked down at the time of purchased. She did not have a detailed inventory of them, and I did not know where to start on how to draw one up. When I added the mass of each box up, which she had listed?" She was tapping the clip board. "She was able to get about sixty tons of parts in total, and that is only what is upstairs." Her voice was starting to crack again, and she just stopped talking. She was looking at this mass of equipment with a new or fresh set of eyes. This was going to help "her" people stay alive for another few years. This was not done up by some crazy woman. It was the work of almost a lifetime by a pair of patriots, and they had kept it quiet from everyone.

Robert and Jess looked over at the other woman, but it was Jess that was closer to her. She stepped over to the woman and put her arm around her. Jess gave her a sideways hug by pulling in Lora's shoulders into her chest. With the local woman closer, she spoke softly into her ear.

"Your mom and grandmother did a great job. This is exactly the kind of stuff, that we need back home. It must have been a long and tedious job to track down this stuff, buy it on the sly, and then be able to hide it here for all those years. It would have taken a lot of luck, for us to find even half of this." Jess held the woman tightly for a few more seconds.

The group used the lift to return to the ground floor and go out the smallest door of the building. The rest of the tour was camouflaged to hide the millions of C-Bills worth of hard to replace equipment from any unwanted outside attention. One time, while they were out of the line of sight of the sedan. Robert stopped the group, so that they could finish the business they had come out here to do. It had taken that long for the shock of what they had seen to ware off.

Robert spun around quick as a snake and got in front of both women. "Okay Lora. How much is the stuff worth? I'm not going to dicker with you. Just tell me, so I can try to balance the debt owed to one of The Families by our people." Robert was looking right into the eyes of the woman in front of him, and he was waiting for her to say something. He could tell that she was feverishly working her mind behind the red rimmed eyes.

Lora was thinking about her mother, when the Captain had spun and stopped her from walking any further. "Robert, Jess, I have no idea how much money my mother spent on that stuff over the years. She just used what she had. I have not found many bills of sales to base any real cost estimate on. I do know, from a note. That she budgeted about half of the profits, that she made with the dealings from her past to buy and ship that stuff out here."

Lora said as she pointed vaguely towards the hidden warehouse. "She would go to businesses that were having going out of business sales, and she would try to pick up whatever she thought was worth it. I tried to track what she spent on this stuff, after I found out about what she was doing. I could only find about three million C-Bills in purchases, in the public records. That was all I could track directly back to her."

She got a little choked up, then re-centered her mental gears. "Why don't you reimburse me that, and I will call it square. I have made a bucket load of a commission over the last few days, so far." She gave Robert a sly smile, this was her first smile in a while. "I will also need you to cover any shipping and packing cost, to get it out of the Warehouse and to your ships. You do that? And I would call that even. Besides, I remember what three million C-Bills looks like in cash, from what you did to Don today. And that was an amazing move, by the way."

Robert looked at Lora for what he thought was a few minutes, then made and odd facial expression. He was not sure, that she had thought this all the way through. And like Don, he did not want to take advantage of someone who was under duress. He decided to give her as much information that he knew, as facts. Besides she was a Family member, and it would not due to screw one of them over. He wanted and needed her, to make a good decision. The last thing he wanted was her to have regrets after they had left this system and poison the well.

"Lora, are you sure you want to do this? I'm not an expert on most of this type of equipment. I command a jumpship, not a machine shop. I have managed one on a dropship and what was on my jumpship. Still, I would think that three million is a bit light. I think that we could start up some low rate production of say four Blazer rifles a week, about a month after we get back home. That is with the laser lens grinding equipment alone." He wanted her to have as many facts as he could. He felt like he owed her. After all the hard work she and her family had done, and for what they had lost being so far from home.

Lora was looking off into the distance. "Yes Robert, I am sure. Mom would have loved to know that it will be put to good use. Besides my commissions off of you is already at thirty million C-Bills, and it seems like it is growing every hour. I will have the most disposable income of any single person on the planet, even after taxes for a few years."

She gave them a little smile, which went to a grin quickly. "I don't need to be greedy, just yet. That can wait, until your next trip. I will have to get used, to having this amount of money sitting in the bank." She had a larger smile on her face this time. "Just think about how this will help my reputation. I will have clients on every other jumpship that happens to stop by this mud ball, by the end of the year. Robert you just made my career. I might have to start turning away would be clients."

She stopped talking, as an old memory popped into her head. "Now I know how mom and her mother made their reputation when they were getting started. It was a supply run from home!"

Robert gave a deep bellied laugh. The look on Lora's face just could not be ignored. It also seemed strange to kids to find out that their parents knew what they were doing, after all. "I think you will get used to it, soon enough. You have a complete copy of our little shopping list. I don't know if it will be a hundred percent accurate, the next time we will be seeing each other. I think that most of the things you might be able to pick up, we will be willing to take off your hands. We could leave an account, that you could draw on to acquire things for us. Would that help you, or hurt you? I believe your right about how they made their marks in life. I was not in high or even a mid-level command position, when they were set up to come out here. Beth and I last saw each other when we graduated from Finishing school. I did not know that she and her mother were coming to this planet when she had asked to become a Family."

Both of the women were shocked by what Robert had just said. It was Jess, not Lora who came out of the stun silence first. "Sir, how much would you leave in this account? We don't know when we will be back to this planet. It could be a waste of money, which we might need later on." The tone and look were not, in anyway, an attack on Roberts command style or leadership. It was Jess playing the role of devil's advocate.

Robert had not really thought this idea all the way through. The idea had just popped into his head. Robert had always been very good at thinking on his feet, and he quickly came up with an explanation. "Giving money to the Families, to be used to buy materials, which the clan could use? Plus, having them hold on to those same materials for an unknowable length of time. At least until someone could come back and get those materials? That is not a waste. If I remember right? When a family was dropped off. They were given, what they called seed money. I have no idea how much it was. There are things that you cannot tell even your closest friends. I choose to look at it, as that we are just recharging that seed money fund. Its good planning, if you ask me. As for the amount? I think about ten million C-Bills would be enough seed money, to go along with the eight million we are going to pay for what this family has put together with that first infusion of seed money. I think Lora could make that stretch out and make this great cache seem like a second-hand thrift store.

Robert turned a little more to one side, to face his Intel person. It was time to give her a class in cargo ship operations and management. "Jess we use Shipping Factors back home, all the time. We will even use something like them on this trip, more than likely. The only difference? It is that this time? It is that the Factor is a member of a Family, and not some temporary hire that we have never met before we showed up in that system. "

Robert made eye contact with Lora and held it, until she nodded her head in agreement. "So, it's settled. Lora will be our official Factor, here. I'm sure you have the paperwork somewhere, in your computer systems to make it all legal and above board. When the packers come out, you will not be able to keep your part in our operations as quiet as they have been in the past. You can just tell them that your mother had the stuff sitting around and we bought it. And it will be true." Now Robert had an evil smile on his face. "Speaking of computers? We have one we can leave you, if you need an upgrade. I understand that they are a lot more powerful, than you can normally find on the local market."

He gave a soft chuckle, and Jess turned white as a sheet. "I would be careful who you let see it. The last ComStar dirtbag, who saw it? Let's just say that he wanted to have its babies or something. It should be helpful to you. You will have to load whatever software you need, on them for your work. They are completely wiped systems, but they do have some horsepower compared to what the locals have in their offices."

Lora thought about it for a quick second, and she tries to weigh all of the potential issues. There were a lot of them, that had come up right off the top of her head. All had work arounds with legal precedents on the books, which she knew of or had used in the past. She also could use a new computer system. Hers was old, but it still did the job that she needed for it to do. If this new system was as powerful as Robert was saying? Well, if not she could just use it as a prop in her office. If it came down to that. She could always sell it to MMM or another large business, if she needed to. Having a few Lost Tech devices sitting around your office could be a powerful bargaining tool.

"I could use a better home and office computer system." She held up her Noteputor and kind of waved it in the air. "I was lucky and picked this up from a mercenary unit, which had just come in from the FWL for some vacation time with one of the circuses. I don't want to tell you how much it cost me, but it has made my job a lot easier. And it is about three times as fast as the paperweight I currently have sitting in my office."

"Well now that this has been taken care of. How about we go back to the drop port? I'm beat, and Lora needs to make some arrangements for all of those tools and boxes that need to be moved. While we are there? We can load up one of the computer systems that we were hoping to sell, and she can take it back to her office." Robert gave Lora and Jess a little smile.

"Lora, let me give you a little advice. No matter how hard you my try to hide it? ComStar will find out about it, sooner or later. So, don't hide it in the first place." Robert raised an eyebrow at Lora. "I would suggest that when one of those robed crazies asks you about it? You should just tell them you have it, and don't lie to them. You should just sell it to them for whatever you can get. It will drive those guys' nuts trying to figure out, who else we might have sold them to without them knowing about it." Robert had the evil grin plastered all over his face again, and this time Jess had a matching one to show that she agreed with the whole idea.

The group walked back to the sedan and started the long drive back to the drop port. While they were going down the smooth road, both Jess and Robert fell into a light sleep. Lora was busy making some contacts for a work crew, trucks, shipping materials, and lifting equipment to clean out her hidden little warehouse. Robert was going to have to pay extra for the short notice job. In the end, a large crew would be coming out to her mom's old place tonight. They were to load up the equipment, and transport all of it back to the drop port as soon as a container was loaded. Every one of them would be drawing double overtime, and Copeland Supply, Salvage and Resale would be gladly picking up the tab. This made a lot of people very happy, when those expanded paychecks hit the banks.

One of the nice things about being on Dunianshire? It was that it had a drop port, that was active twenty-four hours a day. It also was open every day of the year to help support both the local industry, and the whole Magistracy of Canopus as well. The day shift was a little busier than the night shift, but it was not that much slower than the day shift.

Lora had just finished her work, when the VIP hover vehicle pulled up to the dropship. Both of the other passengers were still snoring lightly, when the sedan came to a complete stop. Lora was looking forward to taking a nap soon, also. But the idea of making so much money, in such a short amount of time was firing her engines into overdrive mode. She would catch up on sleep, and maybe take some time off when Robert and his people had left the system. As soon as the hover car stopped the two off worlders popped awake, like they had not been sleeping.

The open area around both dropships was still a busy area, when the hover car pulled to a stop. A mech hauler was unloading another of the Carbine industrial mechs near a closed dropship hatch. There were still four other work machines waiting to be loaded into one of the dropships in different areas of the working space. They were waiting along with a shipping container filled with something hidden inside their metal walls of protection.

Jess went towards the passenger hatch, so that she could have the computer system loaded into the sedan. While Jess was doing that. Robert and Lora went to find the senior Cargo Master. They had some bad or good news, to give him about another sixty + tons of equipment coming to be loaded. The bad part? That was that the sixty+ tons did not count the containers, which they would have to be loaded in. The Containers were used so that cargo could be stacked better in the cargo holds. They also would hold any padding needed to protect the items from being bumped around in the spaceflight, which they were planning on taking in the near future. Packing something like that was an art form unto itself, and it took years of work to become good at.

Lora was the one to let the Cargo Master know about the late delivery of over sixty tons of tools and equipment. Robert was only a few paces behind her, to evaluate how she handled the task. The Cargo Master was very concerned about the idea of that much lose cargo added to some other items that had arrived, that already was "loose" in the different cargo bays. One of the things that they had not loaded, before they had left New Circe, had been empty shipping containers for any lose cargo. It had not been policy to take empty cargo containers. He was worried that this would get worse, as they picked up items at some of the less well traveled ports.

Robert quickly authorized the Cargo Master to pick up a dozen empty containers, which were always available at the larger drop ports for a reasonable price. He agreed that it would make things easier, when they stopped by planets that were not this developed. The Cargo Master was happily surprised, when he was told that they would not need any of those new containers for supplies that Lora had just arranged to have dropped off. The Cargo Master was very happy that they would come to him already to load, stack, locked down, and sealed when they got to the dropship. He knew that they were getting short of time, and he was betting. That he was going to be getting cargos up to the last hour, before they lit the fires under the dropships. They could not afford to let anyone watching them, know that they were leaving earlier than announced.

Now that Lora was done, she said goodbye to Robert and walked back to the waiting sedan. She needed to talk to the driver, before he tried to leave for the day. Now Robert could do his job as the mission commander. "So, Cargo Master how is it going? Did things settle down, after we dropped Mike off?" Robert asked, as he looked around at the cargo waiting to be loaded onto the two ships. To his trained eye. The stacks of cargo seemed to be growing faster, than they could get it loaded into the two dropships.

The Cargo Master pulled a rag to wipe his forehead of sweat. "It's going about as well as it can, sir. We had to delay loading some of the workmechs for a while after they first arrived. Then we had to delay them again, when we had a load of flatbed cargo trucks come in. It made more since to get them inside first, it is normally easier to load certain workmechs last."

The Cargo Master was looking at the field of stuff, that still needed to be loaded. Normally, as in back home. He would have a list of everything at once, and then he would adjust where he wanted the stuff and when it should show up to be loaded. On a resupply mission? He had forgotten what it was like to pack on the fly and have to do it quickly. All before someone got froggy and made a jump at them on a drop port, or while they were still in close orbit of a planet.

Robert looked at the younger man, but he was not that much younger than Robert was. "Cargo Master. The cargo holds belong to you, and you know best how to load the ships for a safe journey. I will not second guess anything that has to do with the efficient use of the space and lift capability of these ships, when it comes to cargo. Those decisions are for you and your Captain to make. I will not second guess you, and I will not support anyone who would try and second guess the expert that was on the scene. I will do my best to let you know what is coming. In fact, you might know what is coming before I do sometimes." Robert gave the man a smile and a slap on the back. He knew that they had an additional disadvantage on this run. Before they could have used the massive cargo space on the Black Lion class Rickenbacker to cross load to get the maximum value for a given amount of cargo space that the dropships had.

"Thank you, Sir. It just would have been nice, if the venders would have stuck to the planned delivery schedule. Even those Frakrs over at MMM, could not even keep to the plans that they sent over. I would expect a better shipping department, from a company that size." The Cargo Master stopped talking and looked over Robert's right shoulder and grimaced. "Now I bet that we have a 70ton cargo truck, which only was supposed to have been here an hour ago coming in."

Robert turned around and saw that there was a massive recovery truck coming up behind him. It was slowly coming up behind him. It was not on a trailer, but a driver had brought it all the way over from the sales lot under its own power from across town. On the back of the huge truck, was a smaller 50ton recovery vehicle strapped down on the open space behind the crew cabin. As the massive truck turned, it showed the reason that the massive recovery vehicle was moving so slowly. It was towing a pair of 50ton trucks behind it. Robert had to fight not to laugh. That was one way to cut down on the number of drivers, which they needed to pay for. After all it was a recovery and transport vehicle, so why not use it as such and save the shipper some money.

"Well, Cargo Master. I will leave you to your work. I will be in my cabin, if you need me for anything." Robert knew it was time to leave, before the other man had a heart attack. He also had to bite his lower lip, from making a snappy comment. It would have no doubt sounded funny to him, but not to the senior Cargo Master.

Before Captain Copeland could move, the Cargo Master had one more thing to tell him. "Sir, you might want to stop by the meeting room first. A few hours ago, a delivery truck stopped and wanted you to personally sign for a small package. They let me do it, but they had to drop off a paper wrapped package that was addressed to you and Jess. To give the services credit. He was doing his job, but he sat here for half an hour before I was able to put my name on the line for it. I have got to be getting back to work, Sir." The man said and pointed to Jess. She was overseeing a second person loading a box into the main passenger area of a sedan.

Lora and Robert walked back towards the waiting car. Robert pulled out another C-Bill, this time a fifty instead of the hundred, which he had given the day before. Lora needed to get back to her mother's place, as well as drop off the computer system that they had loaded into the sedan at her office. She would be returning to the dropship in a few hours, to finish up some paperwork for the locals. It was easier to do it at the drop port, in case she needed to get any signatures from the Captain that had "hired her". Then she would see what else might need to be done, that she could help with. That was what she was thinking, anyway.

The two people made their way into the massive ship after waving to Lora, as her transport pulled away. Robert told Jess about the mystery package waiting for them in the meeting room. He was rewarded with a pair of raised eyebrows. This was a first, which they could remember. And that was not normally what someone would call, a "good thing".

Jess and Robert looked at the wrapped package setting on the long table in front of them. They had been talking about what it might be. Jess had some worry, that it might be a bomb of some kind. From what had happened with the attempted break in earlier? That was not too far out of the ballpark, in Robert's mind also. It was not until Jess got up to walk around the table, and noticed a card taped to that offside of the thick package that things changed.

Until then, they had been sitting as close to the main hatch as they could get. Jess leaned over and pulled the card off from the back of the package and opened it. She started to laugh, and then passed the small card over to Robert. He was giving her a look, like she might need to see a doctor or have a white "I love me jacket" fitted for her. Robert took the offered card, and soon started to snicker right along with Jess. The card was a thank you card, from Dawn at the MMM showroom. They both were now thankful that they had not brought anyone else into the room with "the package".

Jess had started to open the package on the desk while Robert was finishing reading the thank you card for a second time. She was like a kid on Christmas, as the decretive paper flew around in small and odd shaped pieces of foil color. It was a short stack of books, hidden under the two layers of wrapping paper. The first one was an updated copy of the book, which had so enthralled the two of them at the Showroom. The second and thinner book, was listed as a companion to the first book. It would give a detailed combat review of a few selective units that used some of the machines from the first book. Between the two books? They had a detail list of over three hundred different war fighting machines or modifications of them, and notable units that used signature machines. They were what was in use by all the powers of the Inner Sphere, and most of the major mercenary units.

Those two books alone were going to drive the intelligence section back home, nuts being able to go over them. The hard part would be keeping the books clean of drool from the SLIC agents. What was still drawing Robert's attention in the second book, was the list of new machines coming into service. They had names like the Raven, Wolfhound, Cataphract, Hatamoto-Chi, and Daboku. There were even a few more that were listed as being worked on for future deployment. They were all machines that the Star League had never seen, much less produced. He would have to wait until later to read the six-page section on the Wolf's Dragoons.

What Jess was most concerned was about the section covering the lower tech Star League machines, that were still being built or showing up in ever larger numbers. What she was thinking about, was how long it might be. Before all of those machines were rearmed, with what the SLDF regular army had to fight with so long ago. Then how long would it be, before something equal to the Royal designs started marching off all of those production lines. Jess was having a mental review of an old show, she had seen as a young adult. It had been about the massive rearmament of the Wolverines, after they had founded New Circe in 2870. The auto factories had been working overtime, with line after line of Royal Lancelots and an equal number of Royal Black Knights walking out of the factories as fast as they could be built. Those two machines had first refilled, and then worked on expanding the fighting forces the Exiles had.

New Circe might have the edge in the range and firepower per machine with their growing number of clan-based weapons, but the Inner Sphere had lots of combat machines. If this kept up? How long would it take before the house armies were the equal in base tech, with what most of Clan Wolverine reserve machines went to the field with? How long would it take them to catch up to the rest of the Clans tech base? Having lots of people? Also meant having lots of minds, coming up with clever things to fight a war with. That is, if they could keep from blowing themselves back to the near dark ages again? How would the House Lord's react, to finding the SLiE? There were a lot of questions, and she had none of the answers.

After a few minutes to quickly look over the books, both people started to get tired. It had been a long few days. They retired to their rooms for a nap, before they had to be back to work. The stress of the possible bomb had drained them of their last energy reserves.

Robert did not need his alarm clock to wake him up, from his long nap. His stomach did that for him, no problem. After getting the sleep out of his eyes, and after a quick look in the cabin mirror. He put some water on his face. Robert was now ready to be seen, by the crew of the ship. He stopped by the small mess hall and got himself some food, to satisfy his stomach. He also used the time to visit with several members of the crew, which he had not been able to do until that time. After dropping his plate off, so that it could be cleaned for later use. He made his way to the dropship's bridge, this time he took the lift and not the stairs. It was time to play the part of the mission commander, again.

There were only a few people on duty, when Robert entered the command heart of the ship. He was given a quick update on all of the ships and the crews under his command. There were not any surprises waiting on him, so far. With the update of the small fleet complete. He left a message, to be passed along at shift change, with the senior person on the bridge.

The message was that he would be in the ship's main meeting/briefing room. He planned on going over notes and doing paperwork, if anyone needed him. As he was leaving the bridge. He tried not to notice, that one of the duty crew was pushing a button on his control console. It was most likely notifying the dropships commander, that he had stopped by. That was one of the subtle signs of a good crew. They could do the mission without supervision, but they would always let higher know when someone senior had stopped by.

Robert was alone in the meeting room for some time. He would alternate between reviewing some of the paperwork that running this small fleet required of him to do, and some more enjoyable research. Nothing in any of the reports from the Styx said anything about, the HPG intercepts or the status of the decoding of the other messages it had intercepted. He would have to wait, until he had re-docked to the larger ship to find out about those messages. There was no need to take the chance that someone else might intercept their messages and find out about the capabilities, that a "normal" jumpship should not have.

He did have a report about the first incident of crime on this mission. The device that was found, had been looked at. It had turned out to be a very high-end hacking deck, which the attackers had used to breach the hatch of the White Rabbit the other day. The device was so high tech? That it was better than anything that the clan had taken into Exile with it, so long ago. This was a very disturbing device to find in use on the outer edge of human space.

Robert was sure that there was a long list of people, back home, who would love to take it apart, to see how it worked. A different list of people he knew, would like to see the decoding software that the system was sure to have loaded within its memory storage areas. All so the thing could work its magic on other electronic devices. Just think what they might find deeper into the Inner Sphere, if this was an example of what the edge had access to.

Now that the nightmare was locked up inside a hidden compartment of the senior Cargo Master on the Maru. No one wanted to damage it, or it be found by an inspection team. It was likely to have some sort of anti-tampering device loaded onto the mass of plastic and ceramics. It would be better to wait till they got home where they had the time, more experience personnel, and better tools to do this kind of work.

Robert signed off at the bottom of the report, so that it would be noted that he approved of the actions taken about the device. He put it in the growing pile of hard copies. Those would be locked into the ship's main safe, when he was done for the day or when he left this room. Whatever came first today, and who knew which that might be. After this morning, there was room for the paperwork to fit into the safes. He took the time to read two or three of the entries, from the books the Dawn had given him to take a break and refresh his mind.

He had just returned to the mission paperwork waiting for him, when both of the ship's Captains and their Cargo Masters entered the room threw the closed metal hatch. Robert's eyes were drawn to the opening hatch. " _That was good timing,"_ thought Robert.

It might not look good to see the mission commander relaxing and reading, when there was work that needed to get done. Robert looked up and then waved to the chairs on the sides of the table, which dominated the small metal room. The four men waited until Robert had finished the report he was working on, before they would distract him with what they wanted to talk to him about. Robert was wondering if it was going to be good news or bad news. If it was really that important? They would have not taken seats at the table.

As Robert signed the last document, he made eye contact with the men. "I would like to tell you both, that you have done an amazing job." Robert looked at the two Dropship's Captains first. "Your crews have behaved amazingly well, and I have authorized an additional amount of the cash funds to be turned over to both of you. This information is for you to pass along to your crews. Each Captain will decide the amount to be given to each crewperson, and when they will be given the cash. Now, how are we doing on the resupply and any other cargos that we can find?"

The Captain of the Maru was the first to speak. "Sir, we have all the cargo you have paid for, loaded and secured in the bays. The perishables supplies will start to be delivered around 0800, and those should only take an hour to load and tie down. I contacted all of the ships at the jump point, and they have sent a list of types and amounts of food that would top off each ship. I put the order in for everyone. We will be able to cross load, once we are back on board the Styx."

The Captain of the Lisbon Maru pushed over a slip a paper with a number handwritten on it. "I need to be able to give or transfer this amount as payment, when the food is delivered. I did not want to use the cash, which we had on hand and prepay for it. I like to be able to check stuff like that, before we load or pay for it."

The Captain shrugged his thin shoulders. "You know. Just in case someone wants to play games and sell us rotten or nearly rotten food." He did not need to say the word "again". It had happened on almost every supply run that had been made. It would be on some nowhere planet, and someone would try to sell them leftovers at fresh food prices.

Robert screwed up his face. The thought of paying for rotten food, and then having to be stuck with it until they could dump it into the emptiness of space. It had happened before to him, once, while he had been in command of the Styx. It would not happen again, if Robert had anything to say about it. He was very pleased that the Mule's captain had thought of a way and had implemented ways to mitigate that issue without being told or asked.

"Again, good call Captain. We will only transfer the funds via an electronic transfer. But only when you're satisfied with the food, and not a second before. I would not like to have to explain, back home. About how we lost a few thousand C-bills worth of food, when they check out the books back home. Do you have any more leads come up on cargos, which we might be able to pick up? You all know the ones we are looking for?" Robert knew that there had been a few dozen contacts, and that did not count the list of the MMM ones, for different contract work. Most had not taken "no" as an answer, and they had kept calling about charter loads. The group of four had a good laugh about that one.

This time it was the senior Cargo Master who spoke up. "Sir, I was contacted by a personal transport vender. He drove right out to us, while we were receiving and loading cargos from other sources." The Cargo Master gave his head a little shake thinking about the gutsy car salesman, that had shown up on their doorsteps.

"He told me, that he had some transports. One's that matched what we had posted, that we wanted to buy. I told him that you did not have the time to go check them out today. I thought he just would leave. Instead he came out with the idea that he could load up a few dozen auto transports, and he could bring them out for you to pick what we wanted right off of the transporters. Before you say it, Sir. I told him that there was no way we would buy that many."

The head shaking got more vigorous from the man in charge of loading and handling all of the cargos. "I even told him that, I would not guarantee that we would buy even one of whatever he brought out to us. That did not seem to bother him. He just smiled and walked away." The Cargo Master had a somewhat flustered expression on his face. He had never had to deal with something like that before, in all of his years in space. Dealing with the changes, caused by outsiders was not the Head Cargo Master strong suit. Not by a long shot.

Captain Copeland almost let a smile cross his well-schooled face. "Don't worry about it, Cargo Master. If he shows up again? We will see what he has to offer. Well, and we will just have to wait until tomorrow, to worry about it. I think he was an owner and main operator of some small used truck or car lot. He must have seen the information we posted and heard the rumors about our buying up certain types of cargos." Robert just hoped that the car salesman was not going to try to overcharge them if he did have something, they needed back home. Robert gave a slight shrug. You never know, if a small shop had enough drive? They must both show up and have something that he thought might be worth buying.

"That is about what I told him. Sir!" This was said by the dropship Captain of the Lisbon Maru, as he looked at both men. "Sorry sir. I did not mean to jump in like that." After getting a nod from his Cargo Master that he was done. He decided to take up the meeting.

He looked at his notes and with the free air and started his brief. "I was contacted by someone from the Aerospace Division of MMM. They picked up a rumor. That we might be interested in some large aerospace parts, that they had on hand. When I asked what they might have for sale? They told me that they have two complete, new built Leopard class ships engines that are still in the boxes. They also have a factory rebuilt engine of the same class, which they would like to sell. I think they heard about the Styx buying Jumpship parts, and with the Hobgoblin out there? Someone over there went fishing."

The dropship Captain looked over to Robert. "I sent the Chief Engineer over to check them out. When she came back? She said that they all look good. She took some measurements, and they seem to be built to the same specifications that we use back home. They are only across the drop port, so at worst. It would only be a waste of an hour or so of her time, if they were junk. I would have waited, but since they were so close to us. I sent her, under my own orders. The engine cores are already in shipping containers, so it could be a quick load up. I checked with the Cargo Master, and we have space and the lift available, even if we pick up all three sets of dropship power units."

Robert was thinking, long and hard. Dropship engines were not on the list of items to buy. They could make all manner of drop ship engines back on New Circe. They had to support their, not so small, dropship fleet for all of these years. They could and had made brand new dropships in the past. That did not mean that it was simple, quick, or cheap to do so. With almost half a dozen Leopard class dropships in operation in the SLiE? Then having an extra trio of engines would allow something else to be done, instead of making those parts needed for the Leopard Carriers power plants.

"That is good enough for me, Captain. If you both think that they are good? We will try to see what I can do. Do you know how much they are asking for them?"

"Sir, these are all complete engines. They told my Engineer, that they wanted twenty million C-Bills for each of them. I think that is overpriced somewhat, for the new built engines. It is very overpriced for the rebuilt one. We have no idea how old it is. Or even if it has had a complete factory rebuilt, as advertised. We do know that they make that class of dropship completely, on this planet. I don't think they would try to pass something off as a new engine, which is not, into a local made new space frame. Now, if we can get them all for a good price? I know that it would make "The Station's" maintenance crew very happy. We can make them back home, but it would mean that we could do something else with the factory floor space."

The dropship's Captain was looking down at his folded hands in his lap. He had no idea that his commander had been thinking the same thing a few seconds before. He knew, what he would like Captain Copeland to do. Then again. They were talking about a lot of money, which might be put to better uses down the road by the more experienced mission commander. That did not even count the cargo space they would use.

Robert let a little smile come to his face. It was good that the younger dropship commander got a little taste of what it was like every hour for the mission commander. "Captain! This is one of those times, that I'm glad this port is open all night. Contact them and forward a copy of the message down to me. Tell them, that they are to contact me. If they would still like to sell those plasma throwers? We will see if I can get them here at least a few hours, before we lift off."

Robert looked down at his old watch "I want to light the fires, in 36 hours." Copeland looked around the table. It seemed like that was all they wanted to talk about, but he needed to make sure. "If that is all? Then I will let you all get back to taking care of the ships. I will be here for some time, if anyone needs me. I will handle the call about those engines, from down here."

The four men rose from the chairs and left the room to the small fleet commander. A few minutes later, the wall mounted phone buzzed for his attention. When Robert picked it up and identified himself to the bridge communication crewwoman. She informed him that the salesperson was on the line referencing the dropship engines, which they were trying to sell. Jess walked into the briefing room just as Robert was getting ready to do some horse trading over the phone.

Robert waved Jess to sit down, so she could not interrupt him. She sat down and started eating the food that she had brought in with her. When his voice went up in volume, Jess's head snapped up and looked at the Captain.

"Look Jack! I know, I know! You said twenty million for each of the engine cores, when my people checked them out. Let's take this in two parts. First the new built ones. They list at 19.152 Million each on your company sales packet. That is installed into one of the Leopard's hulls that you build or more often than not older craft. They are craft that you have rebuild, in this system. I'm not having you install them, so that will cut down on the labor cost, which that number also represents. I just happen to know, that it cost your company under six hundred thousand C-bills to make one of them. So, that means you have a lot of room on the cost to sell them. All still while you can turn a profit for your bookkeepers to be drooling over!"

Jess was watching Robert as he seemed to be listening to someone on the other end of the handheld device, for a little while. She saw Robert look toward the metal ceiling and he rolled his eyes. Jess started to feel sweat starting to build up under her armpits. She could tell the Captain was not happy. When he looked back down and noticed that Jess was watching him. He made a fist then pointed one finger upwards and used it to draw small lazy horizontal circles in the air. Jess started choking a little on her food, trying not to laugh out loud. It would not have helped things, if the noise she had made would have been picked up by the phone.

"Jack! How about instead of reading me the stats sheet, again. Why don't you just give me a realistic number, will you?" Robert was quiet for a few seconds. "Well that is better, but I was thinking more along the lines of about two million for each of the two new built engines." Robert had barely enough time to pull the speaker away from his ear, before the shockwave of noise started coming out of it. Jess could not make out what was said, but it was loud and did not sound very happy to what Robert had just said.

Robert put the speaker back to his ear, once it seemed safe from getting his ear drums popped. "Now that we both have been obnoxious. Maybe we can get down to some real business." There was a pause, before Robert started to talk again. "So, Jack, exactly how long will it take for someone to come out to this part of space, and out of the blue. They order three small dropships that those engines would fill. Just so that you could get the nineteen million each, that you just said that you want for them?"

Robert again had to wait for the person on the other end to stop talking. "Jack I still will have to ship and hold them, until I find a buyer for each of them. I think I can, but it will take some time to move all of them. Because you and I know, that finding three Leopards. That need engine replacements, is not going to just happen overnight or be in the same system."

Robert was again quiet and waited. "Done deal! Ten million C-bills each, but I want my guys to check each one over, before we take control of them. If they pass this last inspection? You will have the money transferred before we move them into one of our cargo ships. If you can have them here tonight? You will have your money, when the banks open. Now about that ancient engine someone traded you, for a few grand in a discount on a new built one. By the way, how old is that engine in the first place? You're offering a warranty on it, right?"

Jess was watching her commander at the last, but she saw Copeland pull the phone away from his ear. He looked at the device, like it was a walking fish. Then he put the phone to his ear again, and Jess could hear the change of tone. "What am I going to do? If I am all the way out, at say by Luthien? What exactly will that warranty cover, and how would I be able to use it? The way I see it? It is that I'm taking all the risk, and you want to take all the money out of my pockets." Jess knew as well as Robert, that any warranty would never be exercised. She did have to admit, that it was one heck of a negotiations tactic to use against someone.

There was another pause, while Robert waited again. "Okay I can do seven million for it, and the same rules apply to this one. I want them all tomorrow morning, or tonight if we can. Yes, I know I'm a hard ass. But I know that you will have a new engine built before the next leopard leaves the company dock yard. I also happen to know that will not happen in the next five months. You just added a bunch of black ink to your company, a lot of that is coming out from what they paid me for that jumpship. This is a major win for your department and your whole company, for that matter. I'm sure someone already told you that."

Robert waited for a second, and then there was a slight narrowing of his eyes and a slight smile crossed his face. "Jack! Thank you again for working with us. Would you mind if I leave a message with Mr. McDonogh, about how hard of a bargain you drove for those engines? No, it's no problem at all. He told me he liked to be involved, when large sums of money were changing hands."

Robert let a large smile cross his face, just before he rose from the table and returned the speaker to its recharging point on the wall. Robert activated the noteputor and started working with it, as he walked back to the table that Jess was setting at. When he returned to the desk, he needed a few more minutes to finish his little message. He looked back at Jess, when he was done. He smiled as he pulled over one of the books that Dawn had given him and started flipping through it.

Jess was waiting for him to say something. After seeing that Robert was playing his normal games. She raised the stakes and started reading the other book. She really was only flipping through the pages and eating, while she was waiting for Robert to tell her what happened. Robert was reading but he was also covertly watching the young woman.

When Robert was satisfied with Jess's evaluation. He went back to the communication speaker. When the bridge picked up on the other end? He told them to pass along a message to the Cargo Master, that they might be getting a few dropship engines delivered between now and sunrise. He did not pass along. That when they showed up, that they needed to inspect them. Robert did let the bridge know that they needed to give him a call, when those engines showed up.

When Robert returned to his seat, he looked at Jess. "I was briefed in person, by High Command, before we left. They wanted a whole Leopard CV, if we could find one out here. Now, we will have a supply of replacement engines for almost half of the operational fleet of that class of ships. Those small carriers have been getting a workout, now that they have those small jump engines in them. I will just have to see, if command agrees with me. The head of the local Aerospace Division for MMM had called over saying that they had three Leo engines. I think, that he might have been ordered to make that call, but he really did not want to give up those engines. I think they found out how much we were paid for the Scout and that some of the different Divisions are trying to get every cent back for his company. What do you think, Jess? Do you agree, that getting the three Leopard class main engines would be worth the cargo cubage?"

Jess was looking at him, but she was thinking hard. " _I am the mission Intel person. Why is he asking me for an opinion for something that is on the operation side of things?_ " Then it hit her. This was another test and a test of command, not her normal job.

"I think, it is a good idea. Picking up those three engines, that is. You know, I'm more interested on if something will be useful. Not whether it will make a profit for the mission books, when we get back home. Do you really need to be on shift, if they bring the engines over tonight? You have a competent dropship Captain, head Cargo Master, and a full engineer team. Why don't you let one of them handle it?" She had no idea why not, so if this was a test for command? Then she would like to know if she missed something, which might be so important. That the convoy commander was keeping his eyes this close on something that was going on around them.

"Your right Jess. I could delegate it." Robert shook his head left to right. "I'm supposed to be the fleet commander. I have got to remember that. That is why I have subordinates, which know their jobs. I don't know about why I did that, but I'm still tired. I'm going to head back to the bridge, and then get some sleep or maybe I will check out the sale ads from my bunk."

Robert picked up the thin computer and headed out the door. "That was a good question Jess. The SLiE is growing and one of my other jobs, is to train her future officers. You're doing great, but you will have to keep it up."

Jess remained behind in the briefing room and was slowly flipping through the books on the table. She took the complement her commander had given her and filed it away to the back of her brain. She planned to be up for a few hours reading and doing her own reports. She was now starting to see why her father had been so happy for her to get this mission. She had wanted one of the premier slots on one of the larger warships. She had been a little disappointed, on the insides with the change of her orders.

Robert walked on to the bridge, just as the communication station was briefing the Maru's Captain on the message that Robert had sent about the engines. Robert could see that the dropship Captain was not happy, with what he had been told. Robert waited for the ship's Captain to be finished being briefed by his crew, before getting any closer to the man. He was the Captain of this ship, after all. Robert was only the commander of the Styx and the overall mission. When the briefing had been completed. The ship's Captain walk towards his commander, and he did not have a pleasant expression on his face.

Robert held up his hand to stop any comments, which the Captain might make and later regret. This would also let the other man know, that his commander had something important he wanted to say to the Captain. Robert was rewarded by a mouth snapping shut, and a raised eyebrow. "Pardon me Captain, for interrupting your update brief. I need to ask if you can cover for me tonight. I had planned to be available, when the dropship engines showed up. But something came up at the last minute. I have all the codes on this." Robert held up the thin computer he was carrying.

"I was hoping that you would take care of making the payment transfer, if they pass the inspections performed by your staff. It makes sense for more than one person to be doing this, and after all. She is your ship. I might be in command of this little fleet, but the Maru is yours."

Robert gave a soft little smile to let the other man know, that the Fleet commander had faith in him to do a good job. It also let his crew know. That the mission commander respected and trusted the dropship captain. If one of those facts were overlooked by a crewmember? It would cause serious issues, down the road, when things got tight and the weapons fire was flying.

"No problem, Sir! I will take care of it. Will we see you at the morning meeting?" The other officer was surprised. He was thinking about having a private meeting with Captain Copeland later, in reference to this last set of orders. Now it looked like the mission commander had come to the same conclusion, that he had and was now adjusting himself. He was not about to say or do anything but accept the change of orders given by the mission commander. If the mission commander went backwards again? He would address the issue, then.

Robert had maintained eye contact with the other officer. Robert could see the wheels turning in his head but noted, he did not say anything. Robert decided to finish the statement he had planned out in the ship's lift. "Yes, I hope that this will be the final full day on this planet. I think we have gotten what we can or have plans to have it done, soon. I am looking forward to seeing what else might have changed, since the last resupply mission into this area. Captain, if you need anything from me. Please feel free to stop by my cabin, any time that you like. Also, would you please pass along to the other key staff that tomorrow will be our last full day on this planet"

Both men nodded to each other, and Robert passed over the data pad. Robert turned and left the command bridge to its rightful commander. He went to his cabin, and he would stay there until the meeting the next day.

During the night, but less than two hours after Captain Copeland had left the bridge of the Maru. The three dropship engines were brought over by a massive Galaport Ground Tug tracked system. The massive machine is mostly known simply as GGT's to people who spent a lot of time on drop ports around the Sphere. Every drop port, of any size, in the whole Inner Sphere would have a few of them around to support the massive facilities. The larger the drop port the more of the monsters would be moving around the area.

All three engines were thoroughly inspected by the chief engineer, and not to surprising. They passed, to her satisfaction. After the Captain of the dropship transferred the funds, to pay for them. The massive pieces of equipment were off loaded onto the ground near the dropship. Then the odd shaped transport pulled away into the night, leaving the massive metal shipping boxes and engine combinations on the ground. The three blocks of metal now were no longer their problem.

Each of the huge engines and shipping container massed almost six hundred tons each. Mike was on duty and had the power loader to help with the moving of the engines. But six hundred tons of dead weight? That was way over the lifting capabilities for that solitary machine. Even with the other four loaders brought down, it did not help. It was just too much mass for them to handle. The Cargo Master was still trying to figure out how to load the massive pieces of cargo, when a representative from MMM stepped out of a Jeep that had pulled up next to the dropship.

She walked up to the side of one of the engine containers that the Cargo Master was standing beside. She had been watching from the little ATV for some time while safely hidden in the dark. She opened a side panel on the container. And after punching a few buttons? The container started to move without any outside effort being applied. When the stunned Cargo Master asked how she got it to move? The Engineer was showed and told by the visiting woman. That each of the shipping containers had an independent auxiliary propulsion unit or IPU that was run by batteries. It was not a power unit that you could power something, other than the metal box. It could only move the massive metal boxes, for a few thousand feet, before it ran out of stored energy. She also showed the visitor were to hook up ships power to recharge those same batteries.

As it turned out, the IPU could not do all of the work efficiently. Mike was still needed to help, when the boxes had to be pushed up the steepest incline part of the loading ramps. The IPU could have handled the job. That is if they wanted to wait at the snail pace the box was reduced to. But Mikes and his loader mech available, to help. This did have the added effect to speed up the process of taking care of those massive blocks of metal. After all they had three of the beasts to load, and the night was only getting shorter.

As luck would have it. Those three engines were the last delivery of goods to the two dropships for the night. After the massive engines were secured inside the dropships. And the MMM rep had left to go back, to whatever job she had been doing before being called out to help at the Maru. That had been done by someone, that had been watching the antics of them trying to load the engines from a nearby security point. Both of the dropships were closed up, and all of the hatches were locked. All the access points to the two ships from the outside world were now sealed, as if they were in the deep black of space.

In the dark and trying very hard not to be seen, were people watching the two ships very closely. One group was there, because they had heard that one of the two ships was flush with hard currency from a major sale. The money was supposed to have come from the largest defense manufacture in the entire MC. This group had to pay off several people in both the planetary traffic control center and law enforcement, to find out when the two ships had planned to leave. It still had taken some time to get the information they wanted. They had been told, that the ships would not be blasting off of the planet for about another week.

This was very good news, for the criminal gang. They had only taken the time to set up a stakeout, so that they could plan better. They would wait until when the time was right, to rob whichever ship had the cash on it. One of the reasons for the stakeout was to find out what dropship to target. They had heard that a different group had already made a play for the payday, and they somehow had blown it. Two of the major crime lords on the planet had put a bounty on the head of whoever had made that first try against this newest piggy bank and had failed. It was an open-ended bounty. No one seemed to know how many people had been evolved, but the crime bosses wanted to make a point and take them all out as an example.

The pair of crime lords were not mad about the failure, or the first try. Only that the team had not let one of them know it was happening, in the first place. They felt that they had been stiffed. And that they would have not gotten their fair share of the cut for an operation that was being pulled off on their turf. The scar faced leader of this group had not made that mistake. He was hoping for two paydays on this deal. One payday would be from the safe on the dropships. The one other payday would be when he found out who had made the first play on this mark. Sometimes you could get more than double the reward, if you could just play your cards right and spent the time watching your target before you made your first move.

A second group was watching the two dropships, also. This group was not interested in the money, that was reported to be in one of the two dropships. They were after something more important, at least in their minds. It was more important than a double-digit millions of C-Bills payday. They had been informed that these Lost-tech prospectors, had found a good-sized cache of powerful computers. These systems were more powerful, than any other computer seen or made in the Inner Sphere since the fall of the Star League. At least that was what the first few reports were saying about them.

They had been directed by the head of ROM in the MC, in person, to retrieve or destroy all of those computers. The area head of ROM had received a report of these systems being sold by an almost close friend of his. The reporter of this information was being disciplined for an undisclosed infraction against someone in the higher levels of ComStar. To make amends, he had been exiled to an Explorer Corps support base outside of the Inner Sphere. ROM just happened to have a training mission working up on Dunianshire to use this new information.

This ROM team was a freshly formed new team. One that had been working with a more experienced team, until they pass their last exam to make them listed as being fully operational. After that exam? Then they would be available to be used anywhere in the Inner Sphere. The original idea had them planning to try to do a little industrial espionage. Or maybe a light raid, on one of the outlying MMM manufacture facilities on this planet. This was something, that was standard practice for ROM teams ever since the Holy Shroud operations had started. That final exam had not gone, the way the new team had planned for it to.

They had taken the Lost Tech Prospectors under observation, and they just seemed like any other merchants on the edge of civilized space. The training team went in using the normal combination stealth suits, which have worked so well on other missions of this type for a few generations. They had not worked this time, or something else and unanticipated had gone wrong. Everything had gone to the briefed plan, right up until the first of the training team had entered the dropship called M/V White Rabbit.

It seemed like every light on the two dropships went on at once, and then active weapons tracking systems started up on both ships. Both ROM Teams had been told, that these were only a pair of dilapidated trash haulers on the edge of known space. When the weapons systems went active? Everyone at the space port had found out, differently. The first target had turned out to be a Trojan class blockade runner, and not some run of the mill cargo carrier. The fire control system on the Mule had not been a problem. The tell tells on the Combo suit told the operators, that they were not stealthy anymore thanks to the Trojan dropship's fire control systems.

The young ROM team leader had shown great situational awareness and courage, when he had seen the plan turn south so fast. He had the foresight to have an exfiltration route planned out, in case the main plan had fallen apart. His quick thinking and pre-planning had saved the team from being arrested. And weather the other team knew it or not. The escape plan had saved the lives of all of the young ROM Team. It would have been the prime ROM team who would have gone into the detention facility and killed each of the captured young ROM team members. Still the blown mission had been a black mark on both teams.

The training team will be slowly and covertly pulled off planet, over the next few weeks. They would be forced to go back to one of the main ROM training bases. Then they must go through a lot of retraining, before they were allowed off planet again. The sneak suits had passed both a pre-mission and post mission inspection with flying colors. That left it up to it being a team issue for the failure of the mission. They must have done something majorly wrong to have blown the mission like that.

This also had made the prime team look bad, because they did not see what had blown the final exam mission. It was there job to train this team to be a valuable asset for ComStar's ROM. Not being able to find out how a training team had blown their missions, on a fourth rate drop port in the back of beyond. That was not a good sign of their skills, as trainers and mentors to the action teams for the secretive ROM department.

The no-named man was not happy, but they still needed to find out how the first mission was blown. And now they needed to finish the job that the first team should have done. He was grinding his teeth, as he watched the two dropships from the second floor of a nearby warehouse. If he could just have tracked or had found any kind of information trail that led to the Dragoons. Or if he could find a trail that might have led to these prospectors, to show that they might have contacts with the Draconis Combine? It would have changed the situation, a lot. He might have been able to justify for his team in breaking out the Tornado suits. DEST were not something to be sneezed at, even by ROM. And they were well known to have used combination sneak suits just like the ROM Team had been using. DEST must have developed a way to counter them, if they had so much experience making and then using them against their neighbors.

ROM had some of those Power Armored (light) suits in storage for high risk missions, and as a rule could only be used against a major Inner Sphere power. If he could find anyway to write the report, that would somehow lead his higher command into thinking that a DEST team might be on board one of the dropships? It that had been true? He might have been even able to use the six Nighthawk suits. They were in a storage cell buried deep underground at the main ComStar compound on Canopus. It would take some time to get those shipped out, but he still had the Tornado suits close at hand. He just needed to find the "right" information.

He really loved using both types of those suits. The downside was that his superiors knew that he like breaking them out, either one of them out, whenever he got half a chance. They had plenty of time to plan. Their support team on the local ComStar compound, had just briefed the prime team on all of the updated information they had on the target. The prime team had almost a week, before the dropships were going to leave this planet. This time they would take their time and watch, until the time for the attack was just right.

Then they would break into the ships and steal the computers from these animals. One or two would be set up as a trophy back at their main housing area, and maybe they would send one to Terra for the main ROM office. It would fit nicely with the rest of ROMs' trophies. The no named man knew that Blake's Will was fickle, but surely the blessed one would want them to be successful. What they did not know, was that they were not hiding well enough. The more experienced ROM team had fallen into the trap called "Target Fixation."

The criminal team was being closely watched by two full security teams, from MMM. Those two teams knew that someone high in MMM wanted to make sure that nothing happened to upset this group of merchants. Both MMM security teams would stay hidden. That is unless the group they were watching made a move against the dropships, which they seemed to be very interested in. The two security teams had no idea that there was another team watching the dropship.

Since both these different groups were behind the ComStar group? The higher tech group had no idea that something could go wrong, behind them. They were very focused on their target, in front of them. It was very bad trade craft, and the prime ROM team should have known better. Also, the ROM agents were used to having the highest tech in operations which anyone had ever seen or used in the history of mankind. The group in the White Rabbit and the Maru, however, had equipment that this ROM group had never even heard of, much less use before.

Every time the ROM team pushed their communication device, to do something as mundane as ask for a cup of coffee. The two dropships would pick it up like a light house on a starless night. This was all thanks to some almost clan-built equipment hidden inside the hulls of the ship. The ROM team were not even bothering with encrypting their internal radio communications. They were just happy using the frequency hopping function, that their radio equipment had been built with. Their communication discipline was so bad. That each of the different bridge crews, were placing bets on who of the watching group was going to be the one who order out for food first. It was a great way to pass the night and keep everyone awake, in the command center of both visiting dropships. The only thing that the dropships did not know, was that the team they were picking up was a ROM team.

 **Notes** :

 **Interception of HPG message** : After the HPG became the prime way of talking between the Stars. SLIC would have started working on ways to know what was being said in those messages. More than likely? They would come up with a few different ways to do that job over the years.

 **The Bomb** : You're not paranoid if people really are out to kill you. It is a question if you are being paranoid enough.

 **Food issues** : Selling rotten or contaminated food has been an issue with ships going all the way back to the beginning of the age of Sail. I would bet that it would still be an issue in the future.

 **Pushy or less than fully honest car salesmen** : Most of us have had to deal with one of these types of people. It might not have been on a car lot, but in some other venue.

 **Cargo Master:** Think of it as the Load master on a military cargo plane. The SLDF was a military organization, so some of the job titles might have carried over.

 **Why buy dropship engines, when you can build your own?** The SLiE has a limited production base. Can they build new dropships? Yes, they can. But if they build some new dropships? What do they have to do without?

 **Lora Noone:** The e is silent. I saw the name in a random name generator one day and I kept it in my writing notes. It was to good not to use here as Lora No One. Just because I was asked about her name in a PM.


	16. Chapter 16 19 Dec 3046

**Chapter 16**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **19 Dec 3046 Sunrise**

 **The Dunianshire system**

It was almost first light, when the first covered or high sided trucks pulled up to the Maru's fire safety line. At first, this caused both ships to go on full alert. That was not a great way to wake everyone up, thinking that an attack force was about to try to breach the ships. It did work to get everyone up and moving with some energy, during the earliest part of the morning. The alert was only stopped, when something came over the intercepted communications from the ROM team. They had said. That it looked like a shipment of food was going in, and the mystery talker asked if anyone else wanted to have some eggs for breakfast. The food delivery was about two hours early.

Robert, the Cargo Master, and the Maru's Captain greeted what had turned out to be food delivery trucks, as soon as the passenger hatch opened. The loads of food items were first inspected and then the power loader mech, that was piloted by Mike, moved the containers into the dropship's cargo bays. This time thanks to the dropship's Captain. The Cargo Master knew how much mass, and how it was coming into his ship. All before it was brought out to the landing pads.

While the food stuffs were being loaded. Lora showed up to the ships. She was very early for the 0900-morning meeting, but she did not make it to the briefing room. She was working with the Cargo Master, when the first load of nonmilitary vehicles showed up to the drop port on a short-trailered truck. The first set of vehicles where re-inspected. They were new built, and they passed the inspection by the mechanically adept personnel on site with ease. The first transporter off loaded some of the 1.5ton Luxury and family style wheeled sedans. They also unloaded some 2 and 2.5ton class of high-end sports cars.

Each of the vehicles was in their own cheap lightweight aluminum frame, which let any of the wheeled vehicles to be stacked one on top of each other without damage. This was to maximize the cargo area in a dropship's limited sized bay. It let them maximize the use of its total volume. The salesman left the day, a very happy person. His boss even wrote up a new office directive, that whenever a cargo dropship landed at any of the drop ports in the local area. A sales representative would make a face to face stop to that pad, to see what they might be interested in.

That was a change of company policy even before all the sales have been done for the day, at least for that one very energetic vender. Six more vehicles were sold that day to this group of visitors from the small car salesman. All of them small battery powered light pickup style trucks. All of them were also used, but they were in what would be called "good condition".

By the end of the day Captain Copeland, the Chief Cargo Master, and the Dropship Captains had transferred enough money to pay for two large intercity hover busses. Each one had massed almost 4tons each. They also picked up four of the odd looking five wheeled sedans, that looked nice and massed about 2.5tons each. Robert picked up six hover sedans that were still new with the plastic still covering the seats and floorboards.

All of those transports were pretty generic and used the same tools, which were easy to come by back home for any repairing that might be needed in the next few years. Most of the minor parts were being handmade already in small shops around the city, and in some of the larger outlying areas on New Circe. With New Circe now under a war footing? All of the major and most of the minor factories were making items to support the war effort. These new items that Robert was picking up would fill what was missing, but still had some use on the planet.

The City of McEvedys was the only major city on New Circe, and it had a well-developed road network. But once you left the city, it was less so. VTOLs were the preferred mode of travel for personnel. But there was a growing network of dirt roads for ground-based movement going all over the place, and to the outlying farms, mines, and fisheries. At least that was the case, until the Colonials landed. Now they had started building their own city a good distance away from anyone else. The Colonials were still working on their own transportation network. The downside was that they did not have anything to use or to make that network, without getting it from the City of McEvedy.

Captain Copeland was thinking, that now there might be a need for more and larger high-speed transporters, and he was willing to take a small risk on the busses. To date all of the support vehicles were wheeled or tracked, that the few factories on New Circe were making. The only things that were built with hover locomotion on New Circe, where some fast battle tanks and Heavy APCs. Wheeled and tracked locomotion were cheaper, used less resources to build, and maintain, and they could cover a more varied terrain types than your average hover craft could.

The clan only had so much production capabilities, and with the added inherent cost of hover craft? This also limited their utility to build new ones for missions, other than combat. The biggest gamble was the two hover racing cars Robert had just bought. Robert knew that there had to be a few viper or fighter jocks that wanted to see who was the fastest on the ground. It was just human nature for people like that.

Sometimes you had to take chances when you were trying to figure out what people might want to buy over a thousand light years, from where they were at the time of the guessing. All of the personnel transports were loaded and secured before dark. Robert was even able to send that message about picking up those dropship engines to Mr. McDonogh. Robert had carefully chosen the wording in that missive. This was going to be the last night on the planet. But no one, but the crews and Lora knew that fact.

Robert made sure that the account with the remainder of the funds raised by the sale of the Scout, would be available when they were not on this planet. This was done after doing a little paperwork, that Lora had to help Robert with. Now it would be available anywhere they might be going in the MC, which had an HPG and or a bank outlet from a list of over a dozen different banks. He would have preferred, to have the money physically with them. But just under ninety million C-bills in cash was not what someone normally carried around, not even by heavily armed dropships. The accounts were set up just like they had been done on the last four or five supply runs. When they left the Inner Sphere? The bank accounts would be closed or simply abandoned, no matter what the remaining balance might be. Sometimes the banks that had held those accounts had gotten a nice amount of digital money, after the allotted time had passed.

Robert gave Lora the list of planets that they would be visiting, to finish filling the cargo bays of the dropships. The list was not totally true, but it was over 90% right. He also let her know that the plan was, that they would be returning to Dunianshire, in about six months or less. The last stop would be to finish selling and completing any last-minute buying, of what they might need to finish this part of the planned mission. Jess and Robert told Lora that they were both looking forward to seeing her and her friend's café again, before going back home. Robert and Lora finished filling out the local required paperwork that ended part of their arrangement. But they officially kept her on as the local Factor for Copeland Supply, Salvage and Resale. Robert and Lora made sure that she had the funds to do this job for some time to come, that is if she did not go on a wild spending spree.

The only fleet work that Robert had to do, was when the two dropship commanders forwarded a request for raising the amount of cargo space that each crewmember could use on this mission. When the trip had started, even he had thought that amount of cargo space was too low per person. Before they had been able to use the battle cruiser's massive cargo bays to hold any excess that all of the mission dropships could not carry. That was not an option on this run, and the number had been adjusted down accordingly by high command.

Most of the crewmembers of the cargo dropships would be able to exploit the additional space today. This was the last trip, that they would be able to make before curfew. The personnel were allowed to store only up to 200kg per person in one of the cargo bays. This did not count what they could store in the small living space, in each cabin on the four ships. Robert had no problem raising the personal storage amount. He wrote a message, that authorized the doubling of the weight going all the way up to 1ton per person. They would not get this increase all at once. The ships leadership would use this cargo increase as a reward, to be given out in small increments over the rest of the mission. Robert only increased the total by 25kg today.

The two ships stuck at the jump point had been able to shop at the jump point recharging station, or when they rotated to make landings on other planets. This was good and bad, for those crews stuck so far from a life supporting planet. The good part was that the supporting stations gave those crews some examples, of the trade goods that all crews were known to buy. So, they did not have to guess, too much, on what might sell very well back home.

The bad part was that it took a ship almost a week to make it out that far, and that meant more money to move those items to the point of sale. Whatever was bought out to the end of the line would cost a lot more. Then it did even at the planet side drop port, much less what was sold outside its gates. When the two cargo ships rejoined the jumpship and her escort. Any extra personal cargos would be moved over to them, due to there not being any extra-long-term storage on those two ships that had been stuck out in the black of space.

Each person in the dropship crew had two full eight-hour shifts, that they could spend out on the town enjoying themselves or shopping so far. A lot of the time they were doing both tasks at once, always in small groups. Tonight, would be the first time to partake on this planet some off time for very few people. Jess and Robert would be able to enjoy some free time and not be "on task". They planned to make the most of it. Jess and Robert stuck together as a team for the night. They were also joined by two other rather large crewmembers for the night. The large pair fell in beside them as soon as they were more than 100 meters from the dropship.

The four of them, were the last of the crewmembers that made it back on board the two dropships that night. It was right at midnight local time, when the hatches were closed and locked. It took only thirty minutes to have a head count complete, and have it turned into each of the two ship's Captains. The duty shifts on each dropship kept an eye on the maybe ComStar Team, that they felt was watching them.

Through the night the ships were prepared for lift off, as last-minute items were packed down for the morning flight. Some were permanently packed down and would not be looked at again by their owners, till they got back to their home system. Nothing needed to be done on the outside of the ships, which was not different from what the ships had done every night, since they had landed on the planet. Fuel had been loaded on the first day, that they had landed. This was normal for all most all of the ships in this age of combat, raids, and wars that could start at any second you were at a drop port. You never wanted to be caught on the ground with dry fuel tanks, if something happened outside of the dropship's Captains' control.

When the sun rose and started to cast bright light beams, and shadows were starting to be cast by the giant ships all around the flat dropship landing field. Captain Copeland entered the bridge of the White Rabbit, and not the Lisbon Maru. The ship's Captain had been informed, when the mission commander had entered the ships not long after the sun had started to rise. This had been talked about before, so they were not surprise with his appearance on the ship or on the bridge. The commander would plan to land on a planet by riding on the Mule. But when it came to lifting off the planet, again? He would take command from the more expendable Blockade Runner.

Robert took a side seat, that had been set up for him days before. He did a few hand motions and he was safely strapped into the fixed chair. Now that he was ready. He had a set script, that he had to perform. "Captain, are both ships ready to lift?" Asked the senior officer, to the youngest of the ship's Captains.

The younger man turned to report to his boss. He had been in dropship command for almost ten years, but this was a command far from home. And that did not count, that this was a Resupply Mission to support all of his people. Plus, it would be written about in books, at least in a few years. "Sir, both ships report ready to lift at your command. What are your orders, sir?"

"Good, Captain. Please contact Traffic Control and let them know. That we would like to pay any remaining port fees and lift off, when they have open skies." Now it was a waiting game, and the security clock was ticking. Robert was also wondering how long it would take for the two groups, that they knew about, were watching them and found out about the change of plans.

The person at the communication station was sitting at their station. Then in a flash, he puts his hand to his right ear peace. He said something unintelligible by the rest of the bridge, and then he was shaking his head. He turned around to face his Captain with a bewildered look on his face. "Sir! Traffic Control said that all ground port and parking fees at the jump point have been paid in full, by MMM. They want to know if everything is okay. They have an open launch window for both of our dropships. It is for a 1g burn all the way to the jump point. It opens at 1030, if we want to take it. What should I tell them?" The communication person was eye locked on his Captain, but he was trying hard not to look at the convoy commander.

The dropship's Captain had no such qualms, and looked back at the commander "Sir, I think they like us. What should our reply be, about the time of launch?"

Robert just raised an eyebrow. The dropship's Captain had given Robert leave, to order one of his crewmembers directly. Then with a nod to the dropship's Captain. Robert turned a little so that he could see who he was about to give orders to, without interference.

"Comms, just tell them. That we have a good load, and we do not want to pick this place clean. We don't want to drive up the local prices, too much. Let them know that the 1030 launch time is great, and we will take it. Also tell them we look forward to doing business with them again, in the future." The Captain of the dropship looked back to Captain Copeland, who gave the other man a slight nod of approval. Now the younger man can carry on with the plan and use the information, that had been given to him by the convoy commander.

The communication station operator nodded and did as he had been instructed, by the mission commander. Not two minutes later, he was turning in his seat again, to face the senior officers. "Sir, they said have a safe trip. We are cleared to launch in 2 hours 56 minutes, and that if we need to abort the launch to let them know." This time the communications station crewman did not turn to face the most senior officer on the bridge. He was "only" looking at the dropship's commander.

Now the younger Dropship commander was in his element. He did not have to worry about his supervisor. This was old hat to him, and his crews. "Comm, forward the launching information to the Lisbon Maru. Then set the clock and start the flight countdown. We are out of here ladies and gentlemen."

The orders went out quickly and confidently to both SLDF in Exile dropships. Commander Copeland was watching and taking mental notes. They had not pulled the names for the crews, for these four ships out of a hat. They each were some of the best at their jobs, that the Star League in Exile had and could follow the rules set down for this mission. In no time, the countdown clock reached zero on the digital display. Then it was up to the launch computers on each of the dropships to do their jobs. Massive valves opened and cold fuel flowed into massive turbo pumps the size of a battlemech. Those would feed the fuel into the fusion engines at hundreds of gallons per second. The volatile fuel was put to the flame and it reacted as predicted.

Outside the egg-shaped ships, a pair of massive white clouds erupted, and it was quickly followed with red flames coming out of the massive engines. The ships started to move in a pre-planned arrangement, only a few seconds after the flame was visible to the outsiders. Each ship fired off their main engines and quickly went to full power from the "idle" power setting. They started to rise on the fusion powered flames and smoke, even before they were up to the full power mode. The pair of ships left the ground a few seconds apart, just the way that the computers had calculated. That was so that the disturbed atmosphere would not interfere with the other dropships, that were launching close by the pair of leaving ships. They rose higher and higher into the sky on a flame wand cast by the massive engine's nozzles on each of the two ships.

As the two dropships rose into the sky. They were being watched by many eyes, some happy, some sad, and some that were spitting mad. One group had just started packing up there hide site, without too much issue after seen the ships lift off. Since the target of their planned robbery had just moved out of range, for them to be relieved of whatever money and other valuables that they might have had. That was just part of the life as a high stakes' robbery crew. Sometimes you scored, and sometimes you missed. Those were just the breaks of the job, and that was why they had other high pay off targets working at the same time. The team had a few other projects that might give them a payday in a month or so, if they did not likewise slip away.

The other watching group had one person on the roof of the warehouse, and they were taking a less philosophical approach to the day's surprising events. The ROM agent was watching the two ships leave threw his mix of cyber enhanced vision, and a high-tech version of a Scout optics scope. The scope was one that someone from the old SLDF SAS would have recognized. You could almost hear him grinding his teeth, on the next floor of the building that he was standing on.

They had planned to snatch a group of the crewmembers, that very night at the café many of the crew like to visit. They would have preferred to have to take just one of the crewmembers, but they never moved in groups of smaller than two people. Most times those targeted groups were larger than that. Most were made up of up to a dozen people. There didn't seem like a reason to why some groups were smaller and that others were larger. The whole team was going to be pulled off the overwatch duty and help with the snatching of one of the groups.

 _"So much for that plan_ ," thought the man with no name.

The plan had been to contact the senior officer and offer to trade the captured crewmembers back, for two of the computer systems that higher command was so hot about. The idea had been to see which dropship the computers would have been pulled off, to pay the supposed ransoms. It was thought that the computers were on the Mule class ship. They were not sure, because the Trojan class was listed as being open for a sales offer. It did not make since, to the ROM team. That they would store something that valuable on an asset they planned to sell off, if someone came up with enough money.

After the leadership group had left the dropships, to pay the ransom. The ROM direct action team would attack and take or destroy, the computers in the cargo bay of the targeted dropship. All they needed to have done was wait until it was dark, and then take the unlucky crewmembers. The crewmen would have been dead before the contact was first made to the dropships, but those were the breaks for a hostage. That had been the plan, anyway. It was a sound plan, and it was one that this team had used before. It had always gotten good, for the ROM team, results.

As the two ships moved out of visual range, even with the high-tech equipment. The ROM agent was still watching his escaping targets. Captain Robert Copeland did not know it, but he now had two enemies within ComStar. One of them was still in Ltzehoe and had only the power to report back to higher members within ComStar. He kind of knew about or would have expected, to have that one. Robert also had helped that one in his career, by proving that Copeland Supply salvage and Resale was not a small threat to some of ComStar's operations.

Now a ROM Special Forces agent did not like him, and the whole team would very much like to end Robert's life. This was only the second planet, that they had landed on so far. And now SLiE had two enemies, granted they were in the same organization. It was not a good start to the resupply mission, and they did not know half of it yet. What you do not know about, can kill you.

The heads of both of the MMM security teams were watching the dropship rise, and the criminal team packing up their things. They were as surprised as the others, when the dropships had fired up their engines. They also had "known" that the dropships were not leaving for a few more days. The leader of one of the MMM teams was thinking that maybe the short notice launch, was not so short notice for the dropship's crew. The two security teams were just happy, that nothing had happened. They had gotten a lot of overtime, and everyone was going home to their families safe, sound, and no hospital stays. What more could a law enforcement team wish for?

Later that night the ROM agent was writing the report, which was going to have to go back to the head of ComStar operation in the entire MC. He was currently living on Canopus. All of the files and all of the raw data that they had collected would be "boxed" up and sent back to higher command. It was not going to do his career any good, no matter how he tried to spin it or what wordsmithing he used to make his team look better. There was something off about these Lost Tech Prospectors, but he could not put his finger on it just yet. They were too good, and because he did not believe in good luck for the infidels. That made part of his mind itch. By Blake's Blood he needed to find out what was going on with them. His mind went over why, they were not the normal trash haulers.

First, they had detected the first attempt to breach their ships. And now they had done this short notice launch, back to the safety of deep space. The Agent did not believe it could have happened this way. Something or someone had to have interfered in his mission. He swore on Blake's Beard. He would find out what had happened.

 _"I will find these merchants, and I will get even with them."_ He swore to himself and to Blake again. The head of the ROM special action team had a long list of old and new contacts, and he was going to use them.

He was subconsciously going down a list of mercenaries and just plain Pirates, which might do the job that he needed them to do for him. Paying them would be a problem. He was pretty sure that he could phrase it in such a way. That his boss would cover any startup, operational, and post mission expense. Even if he did not? There were other ways to pay for something like this, that he knew about. There were other factions within ComStar, that might cover any cost he might incurred. That is, if he phrased it just right. He would also need the backing of a few key people, that could whisper into the right ears back on Terra.

The two dropships pulled away from the busy planet on the long pillars of plasma flames produced from their massive engines. They could have accelerated faster, but it would have stressed the crew and ships for no reason. Running hotter would have also shortened the length of time between needing an overhaul for those engines, and they were a long way from home. It was a many day trip back out to the jump point. They had to first work on accelerating and then decelerating, to come to a stop at the jump point without distressing the crew or ships.

The time was used by the crews of both ships to search through each piece of cargo, that had been loaded onto each ship. This was to see if anything had been loaded onto the ship, that should not have been loaded. This had not always been the standard operational procedures for supply runs. It had started after a tracker had been found hidden amongst the new cargo, by accident. That had been three supply runs ago, and it caused some issues back home when it was found by an unloading crew. It was later assessed that the tracker had come from ComStar. They did not have any proof, but that made the most sense to the SLIC.

Now, after the ships had left a planet or other cargo center. A second dropship or jumpship would use their passive systems to detect any unwanted transmitters, or other tracking devices emissions that might be coming from the other ships. During the run to this jump point, two items were found on the Maru. One was in the food, and another one had been hidden in a body panel on one of the hover sedans.

Only one device was found on the White Rabbit. This was such a surprise? That they ran the search twice more, before accepting the first results. That one device had been hidden in a package, that one of the crewmembers had bought to take home with him. All of the devices were crushed and dumped out of an airlock after the ships had done the flip to decelerate, but while they were still in Zero G. The pair of ships had yet to start slowing down for their rondevu with the jumpship for the ride out of this system.

Those hunks of metal and other stuff would beat the two dropships to the jump point, by days. The only difference was that the dropships would come to a stop at the jump point. Those hunks of expensive electronics would keep on going, with all the speed, that they had picked up from the free ride provided by the two visiting dropships. While the two ships were slowing down to dock with the jumpship Styx. The jumpship was getting the last of the cargo, that the larger ship had paid for. They just did not have the areas to store anything for long term or for longer than a week. The two dropships slowed and then docked on the two open collars with almost military precision.

Over the next day cargo had to be moved around to the two cargo carriers and inspected by many different sets of eyes. It was a lot of hard work, but it was done without a complaint by a single crewmember. About eight hours, after that cargo transfer had been completed. The SLS Styx started to pull in and refold her huge solar sail. After it was pulled in and secured within the larger ship? She was ready for the jump to another solar system.

On the long jumpship, the command crew was finishing the last few items that needed to be done. The Convoy commander was back on the bridge of his ship. The Styx had not played any games with the Traffic Control Center. They just had given an update after the dropships had cleared the planet's orbital areas.

"Communications, please contact the Recharging Station and let them know we are ready to jump. Tell them that we would like to start a two hour count down, as soon as possible." Directed Captain Copeland. It was time to make the next stop on this mission. He was thinking that this next one would be fun.

The jumpships communication station did as she was told, but quickly had to update the Captain. "Sir! They set an information request. They would like to know where our next stop is going to be. They said it's for their records. They also say that it's for safety, in case we miss-jump or something like that." This was called out by the communication station operator currently on shift.

Jules looked over at Robert and waited to see what the other man would say. They could play this several ways. Jules had a bet, with himself, on what path the fleet commander might take. Robert chose the easiest path, and it happened to also be the truth. Jules lost this mental bet and all he could do, was to give a slight smile.

"Tell them that we are going to Cate's Hold to sight see and take some time off." That was true. In the past, when they had been asked by traffic control. They would be told one thing, but the SLDF ship would jump somewhere else and change their names. If the Styx received a reputation of telling a Traffic Control where they were going? It would be that much of a shock, when they changed up their pattern.

The Enlisted communication operator gave out a soft chuckle, before giving the reply from Captain Copeland to the large space station. She was stills smiling when she was done. "Sir, they say. That we are good to go, for a two hour count down. All dropships and jumpships are clear of our jump field. They report that there are no new jumpships due in for another three days, but another dropship is due at the jump point in four hours. They want an update, if we abort the jump due to the arriving dropship into the danger area. They also say good luck, make sure we look for the old Star League base while we are there. And not to buy any old Star League maps, once we get in system."

 **Notes:**

 **TRO Vehicle Annex Revised**. Yes, I had just bought that TRO when I first wrote this. Does that give you an idea of how long I have been thinking about this?

 **Blake's Wrath/Light of Mankind or Delta/Epsilon**. They are a heavy hitter group. You should not want to make them notice you. That is unless you have a lot of firepower and highly trained people that know how to use it.

 **Not telling Lora everything** : SLIC would still be very careful about operational security or opsec. Lora cannot tell anyone, what she does not know in the first place.

 **The Trackers:** I just thought they would be fun to think about, and then find a way to find them on dropships and jumpships. I thought about how to get rid of them and saw a show where they put a bug in a glass of water. The story just kind of jump out at me, and I wrote it down.

 **Why so little action?** I like building things up. You have to make someone very mad at you, if they are going to risk a few million dollars of equipment to hurt you. That is the price for a low-end lance. How mad do they have to be at you, if they want to risk a jumpship or even a small dropship? That risk would quickly jump to half a billion C-bills at risk. Half a billion might not seem that much to ComStar or a major house, but it would take a mover and a shaker to risk that kind of capital out of their discretionary budget. Or they will have to be very mad at you. Like Wayne Waco mad.


	17. Chapter 17 3 Jan 3047

**Chapter 17**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **3 Jan 3047**

 **A new system 28.03 Ly jump:**

 **Cate's Hold**

One second the Tramp class jumpship was there, with three dropships clamped down to the sides. And in the next second? It was gone. The only hint that something had been there, was an expanding ring or bubble of energy. It was destroying all of the small bits of dust and detritus that had drifted into the jump zone, since the last jump into this section of the null gravity point. In only a few seconds even this wave was gone, leaving only an empty spot in space to mark where over a quarter of a million tons of ship used to be.

28 light years distance, in another star system, an Emergence wave announced that an interstellar visitor was coming into that star system. If someone did not have some special equipment? Then you did not have any warning, that several hundred thousand tons of spaceship was incoming. Even at the height of the most damaging secession war, this information and these skill sets had been kept on almost all of the major inhabited planets.

When the massive ship fully entered this new star system. It sent a message planet side, because just like Ltzehoe. This star system did not have any recharging stations or cargo hub in the area, to act as a jump point traffic control. It did at one point have two of the massive Olympic class stations in this system. They had put one at each of the two main jump points. The wars that had ravaged this area had destroyed both of them, long before the 1st SW had started to heat up. By now, even the wreckage had drifted so far away from the jump points. That nothing could be found on the jumpship's powerful radar system. It was like they had never been there. This information was not new to Captain Copeland and his command staff. It was just surprising to see what could happen to a million tons of high technology.

As the Styx was unfurling the recharging sail. All three dropships that the ship was carrying, were releasing themselves from the long ship. The little fleet would quickly adjust their formation and had started the long trip to the surface of Cate's Hold. They would need to stay in system for a minimum of one hundred and eighty hours or almost eight days, for the old jump engine to store enough power for the next jump. It would take that long for the sail to do its job and recharge the jump engine, from energy supplied from a star that was so far away.

Cate's Hold had fallen onto hard times. It was just like most of the planets in the area of space, that was call the Periphery. Unlike most worlds? It had started a comeback a few decades ago. One that had been started and noticed, before the last resupply mission. It was centered on the discovery of a large amount of radioactive, and other minerals in the planets crust. These minerals were the same ones, that are needed to support most high-tech industrial development post information age.

Up until then, the planet was known for a few other things. It was known for entertainment of all kinds, to include gambling. It was also a hot spot for Lostech prospectors, that would come from all across the Inner Sphere to try their own luck. That was due to a rumor that the old SLDF had a base on this planet, at one time. That base was supposed to help keep the MC under the thumb of the Star League. It had even been able to do that, at least until the fall of that organization. No one on the planet or off of it, knew what had happened to it during or right after the Amaris Coup.

On every resupply mission that the Star League in Exile made, at least one ship on the mission would stop here. Many times, more than one of the smaller splinter groups would stop by. These visitors knew something, which the locals did not know about the rumors of the Star League base. They knew that there were ground bases, not a base, that had supported many different SLDF missions in this whole region for decades. There also was a well-hidden main base. And there were a number of smaller support bases that had been emplaced around the planet, but they also all had been hidden by DoME.

They had been hidden by DoME, so well. That the exact locations of any of the bases had been lost, even to the Star League army that had left the inner sphere all those years ago. The SLiE were able to eliminate two or three of the possible locations, on every trip to the planet. Now they were down to only five possible locations, left on the whole planet. Nothing had been found for the last few trips, and quietly SLIC was getting nervous. After those last few possible sites were investigated. It would get interesting on where they would send people to look next.

After being picked to come on this mission, and not getting a slot on a major warship? Jess had been studying all of the data, that they had on the old SLDF bases and past missions. By now, she knew most of the data, by heart. She had the fever to find the location of the base, and the unknown treasures it might still hold after all of these years. She had her own ideas on where she wanted to look for the old base. She still would have to check at least one of the other areas, that SLIC wanted someone to look at.

The crew picked for this resupply mission was older. In fact, there were more often than not married couples that made up the majority of the crews. This would mean that some of the "normal" activities, that were the norm for most dropship crews. Those would not be of interest to the majority of the crews on these four ships. Once on the ground, each of the three dropships would go on a minimum manning level by SLiE regulations.

This planet was so insignificant, that it did not even have an HPG or even a ComStar compound of any kind. This was going to an R and R area for this crew. But not all would be relaxing on the camping grounds, horseback, or there analog riding. They still had a shopping list to fill, and they would need to sell some items for working capital. And they needed to make room in the cargo holds on two of the ships.

Jess and three other crewmembers, two of them were part of the security team for the little fleet, rented a four passenger off road truck that had a covered 5ton cargo box on its back bed. It was overkill for all there camping equipment. But it had the best off-road capabilities of anything, that the only transport rental company had left on the rental lot. That was more important to Jess. Comfort and cost were well down on the list, of what she was looking for in renting some transportation.

While her and the rest of the off-duty crews were enjoying a little rest, normal gravity, and breathing unfiltered air. Robert was reviewing the reports from the HPG team on the Styx, from his sleeping cabin. That specialized team was doing a job, that did not need to stop between star systems or under anything except combat alerts. He was looking forward to seeing what new scraps of data they will have uncovered from more of those intercepted messages, when they returned to the jump point.

For two days on the planet, Robert was reading those reports and writing more than a few of his own. This left the ship's Captains to run their crews, without having to worry about the mission commander looking over their shoulders. The HPG team had been decrypting as many of the intercepted messages, as they could. They had broken many of the encrypting keys, for the ComStar HPG messages. It had turned out that those messages were masked by a general traffic code.

It had not taken long for that teamed to find out that ComStar had what they were thinking, was two different internal message codes systems. Ones that had not been broken, yet. As the spy team worked, they were getting better or faster about breaking the coded messages. Robert was thinking, that by the end of the mission. They would be able to read most of the messages as fast as they were transmitted from any star system, they were in.

Just because they had broken the coding on the transmitting wrapper. It did not mean that they could read all of the messages. Some of the messages seem to have had an internal codes encryption, and that was on top of what ComStar was using in the first place. It would seem. That not everyone trusted ComStar to not read, what it was being paid to send across the stars. It had taken longer to fully decode those types of messages, and without an idea on who was sending what. There was not any context to some of those messages to fully understand them.

All of the messages had to be run threw a second decoding run. Any of the messages that did not make sense, when it was read by a real person. Then those messages would be rerun threw the decoding software, again. It was not a perfect process, but it was working good enough for now. They had also found, identified, and cracked one of the MC military code groups. The HPG Team had also found and cracked one of the MMM intercompany messages codes, in all of the messages that they had picked up. Robert had to admit that it was a good start.

This was the one message Robert had set aside, for later, when he had found it the first time in the stack of decoded messages the interception team had printed out for him. He wanted to take his time, when he was reading that one. It was the end of the day, and Robert was supposed to be picked up by Jess in a about six hours. He wanted to get some time out in the green fields and open air. Now that he had some open time, he pulled the MMM internal message forward to read. In the message there were not too many surprises. It was between McDonogh and the senior board members of the company on Canopus V. It was mostly about him and the Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale Company.

The general idea of the report was that they, Copeland's people, had found a cache of some kind and at an unknown distance from MC controlled space. It was noted that it might be up to a year travel time away. It had seemed like they were people of their word, and that they should be treated with respect. It also said that Copeland might have access to more Star league era equipment. If they could get more? That would help MMM keep up with the rest of the House armies, in there rearming to Star League Regular army level of technology. It was viewed by McDonogh. That it would be easier to work with Robert and his crew to access this type of tech, instead of trying to take it by making a raid on the FWL or the Capellan Confederation. The message also made reference to an updated Warhammer that was about to start coming off the lines by Ronin Inc. He wanted an update on how negotiations were going for a licensing agreement on that machine.

That made sense to Robert as well. Because if someone made a raid against one of those two major powers? It would be ugly. If it was found out by them, who had been behind the objective raids to steal Star League tech. Both of those powers were known for being willing to retaliate against those kinds of games with a lot more forces, than even a major periphery power had access to. Robert had just finished the report and was making some notes. He was hoping that he might be able to exploit this information, later on in their travels. When he was interrupted by the attention signal? The type of signal, was telling him that the bridge wanted to talk to him and it was important.

As soon as the phone hit his ears, a voice was talking. "Robert, we have a message from Jess. She sent the codes, that said that. They think they might have found something. They would like to know if you might be able to come out this afternoon, instead of early tomorrow morning?" Robert could tell that Jules was excited about the news. Both men knew why she had selected that one area, as her "camp site" for the last two nights. This caused Roberts heart to skip a beat.

"Tell them, that I will pick up a rental truck. I will meet them out at the tree, instead of them coming all the way back to pick me up. I should be able to wrap this up, and be on the road in about an hour. I wonder what they found. I hope it's not another dry hole, where someone has already beaten us to anything useful." Jules made a noncommittal grunt in agreement, before disconnecting.

It was the rare time where the clan would find an old SLDF base that had not already been looted, sometime in the centuries after the fall of the Star League or to support the Exodus. He could not count the number of times they had found a vault or old base. Only to finally break in and find that it had already been emptied. It could have been by the Exodus forces or someone else before or after that time. No one would be able to know, and the Exiles were out a lot of time and expense looking for another empty return. They were not always empty, but all most all of them were. The SLiE had even stopped stripping the armor off the walls in the finds after 3000, unless there was a lot of empty cargo space available.

Robert picked up a Jeep analog and headed out to the wilds, from a rental outlet office at the drop port's only exit. This trip had been planned, but not getting another rental had been thought about. All of Roberts camping supplies had been packed and ready to go for him, when he was ready to leave. He had hoped to spend the last three days of their planned stay on planet, away from any drop port or major buildings. He had the bridge staff call and let Jess know that he was on his way out to her, when he pulled off the rental lot. As he drove, he was of two minds about the change of plans. He had wanted some time off. But what if she had found something? That was going to cause him a lot of stress, and possibly a massive amount of paperwork. But if she found something, it might be worth a dropship's weight of paperwork.

It was a four hour drive out to where he would meet up with Jess, or with one of her crew. When he reached the meeting point, Jess was waiting for him. She was alone and setting at the base of some kind of very large local tree, with a laser rifle laid across her lap. Robert did not see another truck nearby, so he waved to her and opened the passenger door. She gets into the small SUV, almost before the metal door was all of the way open.

As soon as her butt was in the seat, and the rental SUV door closed. She was talking at the speed of a jumpship, as soon as the door had shut. "Captain Copeland! I was right! We found part of the base! It is not the main base, but we found two entrances into what I think was called Lobes or Sally bases." She was so excited. That she seems more like a preteen kid, than a highly trained intelligence officer.

Robert had to hold up one hand to get her to stop talking. "Well let's go see what you've found, Jess." Robert had seen this to many times, to show if he was excited or board. He had been looking forward to having a few days off the clock after all.

Robert started the jeep moving, and followed the directions steadily coming from Jess. Soon they were off the road. She got more excited, as they moved along the rough path through the woods that the small vehicle was occasionally bottoming out on. As they drove down the now dirt trail, periodically Jess would point out areas of disturbed ground off to the left and right. She would tell Robert that those were the sites that past crews had been looking for the old SLDF Base. Sometimes she even knew what team had done, what damage to the ground. Robert was impressed with the amount of information she had memorized about this planet.

Jess told Robert to turn right off of the dirt trail, and they started going up a narrow active creek bed. It was still an active water course, but it currently only had a few inches of water moving down the main central channel. Sometimes Robert could see spots where a larger vehicle had made this same trip, ripping into the creek bed with its larger tires. When they made a 45 degree turn in the creek bed? Robert could see the larger off-road truck off to his left on the creek bank. It had been parked parallel to the higher rock bluff overlooking the creek. The bluff looked to mark the flood level of this creek during the rainy season.

Robert had to put his foot firmly on the accelerator to make it up the first part of the creek bank. When Jess hopped out of the still moving jeep. Robert pulled up farther onto the flatter area out of the creek. He parked by the larger truck, before exiting the jeep and following Jess at a more leisurely pace. She had gone between the large truck and part of the rock bluff, that the high sided truck was blocking the view of from the creek bed.

When Robert made the turn to go between the truck and bluff? He could see a massive rusted and pitted metal hatch, that should lead into some kind of an opening into the bluff side. It was a little darker between the two tall obstructions provided by the bluff and truck. The area was covered from anyone looking down at them by a tent canvas, it even had a few yard chairs not under cover to give it the look of a sleep space. Jess started into briefing mode, as soon as she saw Robert was there and he could see the open metal hatch.

"We found the first tunnel, on our very first night. It was larger than this one. I think that it was a supply or maybe a tank company sally port, due to the low ceilings. It went in about a hundred meters before the tunnel was closed off from the rest, by a cave in. We spent a few hours digging into the mess caused by the cave in but called it off. We think you will need some heavy equipment, and lots of manpower to clear it any deeper. I know that we don't have ether items to spare right now, so we started looking for a mech entrance. One that should have been near to the support provided by the tank sally port. This is what we found instead."

She pointed to the hatch over one of her shoulders. "As you can see a mech, not even a Wasp, would fit threw that hatch. Not even if they tried to craw one of them in. It goes farther inside, but stops about three hundred meters before it also stops, because of another cave in. The cave in was right behind a dropped blast door. We did not find the cave in until we had cut through the fraking thing. That was a letdown, after doing all that work of cutting the battle steel. In the end? We were able to cut through the blast door, but it is packed with rocks, and I don't think we will be able to make it deeper into the base this way either."

When Jess finished her little overview. She walked deeper under the tent overhang and went towards the hatch and now open tunnel. On closer inspection of the area, by Robert. The hatch was only about 2.5m tall and 2m wide on the outside. It looked more like a hatch for infantry to exit from an APC during combat, and not a massive door needed for a support base to function. The hatch still could be moved but it was not easy. Robert was able to move it a little just by using a lot of muscle power. They were waiting for one of Jess's team to finish laying out a power line for something farther in the dark tunnel, before they could step over the threshold and enter the dark tunnel.

Once he had moved out of the way, Jess and then Robert entered the tunnel. As they went down the tunnel, Robert saw Jess's team working on another hatch with some portable cutting tools. They passed three doors or hatches on both sides of the tunnel breaking both left and right from the pair, as they walked deeper into the hill side. These hatches were open, but Robert did not have time to look into them, because Jess was walking quickly going farther into the musty smelling tunnel. Jess had turned on a handheld light as well as a point light, which was on an elastic band that went around her forehead. If she had walked much farther away, it was going to leave Robert in the dark. It was not like the old SLDF put sky lights in places like this, a few centuries ago.

This was Jess's mission, and Robert was letting her run it her way. For now, he was just going to keep his mouth shut and wait. He followed her all the way to the large thickly armored hatch blocking the tunnel, that had been recently cut and pulled open. When Jess stopped and pointed the light behind the heat scar and jaggedly cut hatch. When Robert walked over. He could see that the tunnel behind the partially opened hatch was completely filled with rock and massive boulders, but surprisingly very little dirt and not one drop of water.

Jess was right. It would take trained miners or highly skilled combat engineers, to go any deeper into this complex. If the other entrance, that jess had found already, was like this one? It would take a major pre-planning of the needed manpower and equipment for the next trip out this way. It did look like there was a lot more to this area than what they had found, so far. Jess would have a line in the remembrance for this discovery, for sure. How many people could say they found not one but two entrances to a hidden and lost old Star League depot, in less than a week? None that Robert could remember, even if this pair of tunnels were dry holes so far. It was amazing work, even if the hatch and tunnel armor turned out to just be BAR rated junk.

Robert pulled his head back and gave her a slight nod of approval at her find. "There is no way we are going to be able to go through that, not with what we have on the ships. I don't think the Dig Lord would fit in this low tunnel. Even if we had someone who knew how to use it. Not without killing themselves in another cave in, this one of their own making. When we get back to base?" He was not going to let slip about New Circe. "We will kick it up to higher. Maybe they will outfit a special mission just to dig these two tunnels out, and see where they go."

"Sir, I don't know if we have time to wait. There are a few other groups, that are digging all around us already. They could find this base any day now. I don't think we would want to be here, when they do find something. Whoever finds the main chamber? They will not be able to keep it quiet for even a few hours. That will mean a lot of attention, which our people have been trying to avoid for a few hundred years now."

What Jess was saying was all true, but they were talking about a SLDF Depot? Who knew what could be inside? Someone else higher in the food chain would have to decide what to do with this discovery. Robert felt that it was over his paygrade. He would need to find out everything he could, to make a good decision. That meant finding out what information these exposed rooms might be able to give him, on what might be behind the cave in.

"You said earlier, that this might be a Lobe base to a Depot. What makes you think that?" Ask the mission commander to the head of his Intel section.

Jess turned and pointed back up the tunnel they had walked down. "We found four doors close to the main hatch. The one that is farthest from the exit hatch, was a bunk room with 34 bunks and lockers in the room behind a thin hatch. They were all empty of anything useful. I think that even any leftover clothes had rotted to dust, before we got here. The second room was a massive latrine/shower/gym combination area. That is when I called you, to let you know we found something that might be big. I was thinking that this was a standalone or independent part of the base, if it did not have the blocked tunnel behind that hatch. While you were on your way out here. We were able to cut open the third door, and it's only a kitchen and dining area."

Jess started to almost vibrate in her boots. "If I'm right? The last door will be the armory for the infantry platoon, that was stationed out here. If it is? It will most likely be empty, but a full load out for a SLDF Infantry Platoon would be nice. Even if it's mostly empty, it still will be a nice find. The Colonials are short on any weapons, that have any real damage capabilities against Cylons. Besides shooting Cylons or some standard infantry? There weapons are not that great against harder targets, like we might have to face in the future."

What she did not need to tell Captain Copeland, was that even the Cylons were fielding harder and harder to kill warfighting machines every few months. Still the Cylons were not even up to early age of war hard to kill level, but they were getting there quick. Then there were the Clans to worry about. The information coming to them about the Elemental style powered battle armor, was scary. Some in SLIC thought that it might be exaggerated, but those were the minority in that organization. Most thought that they would be even more deadly.

As they passed each door off of the tunnel, they would stop. Robert and Jess would enter and look around each of the opened rooms. They would open each inner door and see if they could find anything, as one final check of that space. Just as Jess had said, everything that was made of cloth had rotted, but nothing metal had rusted. It looked like the seals had held on both of the hatches, so water had not entered this area of the base. If that was true in the other rooms off of this tunnel? Then it was a good chance, that any weapons left behind, might be at least repairable. Finding a working weapon right off of the rack after so many years was a fantasy, in Roberts mind.

They were at the last of the doors. They were waiting as two crewmen worked on cutting the door open. It was easily apparent that it was a lot heavier made, than any of the other hatches coming off of the tunnel. That is except for the two hatches on the main tunnel, which Robert had just seen already. Jess and Robert thought that this was a good sign. The cables that the men had been running down the tunnel, when Robert had arrived, were for the lights and to run some of the powerful cutting equipment Jess had the foresight to bring with them.

The sun had gone down and those small light stands were the only lights, beside the shower of sparks coming off the cutters. Jess passed her boss a set of colored glasses to protect his eyes from the glare of the cutting tools, when they came to a stop and it seem that he did not want to wait outside. That had not surprised her. She also did not want to wait outside while they were cutting. The pair of them were just standing and bracing the opposite wall of the tunnel. That was when they all heard and felt a loud THUNK, come from the object of all of their attention. The hatch had not moved, but you could tell that the sound had come from it.

Both of the men cutting and trying to open the door, stopped what they were doing and looked at each other for a second. Then each of them grabbed small pen lights and started to look down the glowing hot lines, that they had cut in the door so far. The taller of the two started looking closely into the hole and lines, cut into the top of the metal wall like hatch. The shorter man started doing the same a little lower. The taller man made a loud series of curses, then the second man did the same thing but on a different cut line.

A dozen thick alloy rods had deployed from the center of the hatch into slots in the hatch frame, tightly locking the hatch in place. This event was both good and bad news for Jess and Robert. The bad part was now it was going to take a lot more work, to get into the next room. The good part was that this was indeed a security hatch, and those devices were not put just anywhere in a SLDF base. They were not cheap, even for the old SLDF to emplace. They were only used on certain areas that needed extra security, like command centers, power rooms, life support, and armories. The other good thing was that someone had thought to leave this security system activated, when they left this place the last time. Robert just hoped that it was left active for a reason. Other than someone had the time and wanted to make life difficult, for anyone who showed up after this base had been shut down. Soldiers threw out history, always had an odd idea on what was funny and what was not. Most of the time it would depend on who was the victim, and who was the instigator.

The cutting crew stopped working for a while, to have a hot meal and to take a break from the work. This is when Robert found out that the missing fourth person had been on guard duty outside. He was told it was so that no one could sneak up on them, while they were blindly working in the strange dark tunnel. After the sun had set. The person outside had started up the campfire, and he had set out some camp food out to begin warming for the rest of them. For the group it was not being tired that caused them to stop working, but their stomachs telling them it was time for a break. One of the metal cutters had to stay outside for the next shift of guard duty.

When the four people went back into the tunnel, Robert picked up a cutter from the missing man. He was not as fast or as neat with his cutting as the missing man had been, but it was better than nothing. And he was physically fresh, not having been wiped out from a long day of physical labor. Everyone in the group wanted to see what was in this last room, even if it was empty.

By midnight the bottom of the hatch had been completely cut threw, to include the locking bars that had deployed while Robert had been watching. It had been done by the better trained primary cutter. Robert had only the right-side locking rods cut. With the bottom cut, Robert moved out of the way of the better and faster metal cutter. Robert had cut on three of the side rods, when the second cutter made it back down the tunnel. It was his sleep time, but he said that he was way too excited to get any sleep. He thought he would come back down and see if he could help. Robert was not going to complain, it would speed things back up with a more experienced cutter on the job.

Now with the two more experienced cutters working on the job, it only took two hours to finish cutting the hatch open. They knew when the final cut was complete. It was when the heavy hatch snapped the last bit of hot metal. The hatch fell into the 2inch gap, that had been cut between the bottom of the hatch and the outer frame. It went with a loud metal clank, which caused everyone in the tunnel to whence in pain at the loud sound. The sound caused only a short delay, as four heavy metal prybars were shoved into the sides and top gaps that had been cut into the thick hatch. The four all had huge grins on their faces, as they slammed the prybars into the cut lines.

With a lot of sweat, some colorful words, and not a little grunting. The heavy metal hatch fell forward, into the exit tunnel. It had barely missed four sets of toes. The hatch did not lay flat on the floor, when it had fallen off of the side of the tunnel it was hiding. The top edge was only about half a meter off the floor of the main tunnel. It had fallen at a slight angle. It was just enough of an angle that it was going to make your footing unsure, and still be a trip hazard on the other end. It was however, not enough to block access to the room for the fivesome. It only made access a step up, then take another step, that was at a slight angle going down to the hatch. Once past the still hot, cut hatch lip there was a step down to the original level of the floor on the other side of the hatch frame. The group did not even notice the little dance steps they needed to do, to access the new room.

The four flashlight beams played across the now opened room. It was not empty. The small but powerful lights played across filled weapons racks and closed and locked storage lockers. This was not an entrance to another tunnel. It was something that was worth putting a security hatch in. First one light stopped and then another light followed, until all four lights had stopped on a crest painted on the back wall of the hard to get into room. To either side of the odd shaped Cameron star were the well-known patches used by the SAS.

The 331st had been a Royal Battle Mech Division. The unit had dozens of stories, about working with these elite units from before the Star League had fallen into the dust bin of history. It was using some of that knowledge and experience gained by working with those units, when Clan Wolverine came back to the Inner sphere that had paid dividends. They had been fleeing the abomination, that had become the Clans thanks to the General's Son. They were able to find over two hundred sets of Nighthawk PA(L) armor systems that they were still using to this day. That alone, had been directly thanks to notes and stories about working with the old SAS.

Robert was stunned, like the rest of them. But he was older, and he came back to his senses first. He was also the first to speak of the group. "Well Jess. I think you hit the jackpot. This might get us a return trip out this way a lot faster, than anyone of us might have thought possible. We need to get an inventory done, but if I'm not mistaken."

Robert played his hand-held light against one wall, that had oddly folded and unidentifiable equipment stacked along it. The odd folded equipment went almost to the ceiling of the vault in several tall stacks. "Those are Nighthawk systems, all along that wall and stacked to the ceiling."

 _"_ _If this turned out to be a SAS platoon support base? High command was going to lose their minds,"_ thought Robert. "Jess, I really hope you have an imaging system with lots of storage space with you. I want as many detailed images as you can get of this room, before we move anything. We need to know what was here and were it was, when we get back home. The Archivist Department will have our hides, if we cannot articulate the most minute details about this find of yours to them."

Robert smiled at the younger woman _. "I bet she has not thought about, how this might be received when they got back home,"_ Robert thought to himself _. "That is why I get paid the big bills."_ He did not know it, but a sly little grin had crept onto his face that the others could see. It did not, for some reason make them feel easy about anything. The Captain only smiled like that, when you had stepped into something smelly up to your hips.

Robert grabbed the two cutters/bodyguards and left the room for Jess to do her tasks. He took the two other men to the last room, the one that would have been the bunk room. They went over every inch of the room, with a fine-tooth comb. It was through many hard-learned lessons, during their time in hiding. That now, they were also looking for any hidden rooms that might be in the exposed area. None were found, but you had to take the time and look for those items, when you dealt with special forces hideaways. The group of three, were also looking for anything that might be worth taking back to their home planet for testing or use.

After a little over an hour of looking at every little seam in the opened rooms. They were getting tired. They had only found a few items of personal or military equipment that might be of value, after it had gone through a lot of detailed cleaning. It seemed, that whoever had lived in these rooms? They had packed up everything they wanted, before leaving. In one of the two rooms off of the main bunk room. They had found, that one only had a single bed and a long dead computer on a small desk. They carefully picked the computer up and carried it to Roberts rented small truck. Robert made sure that it was packed down and protected. The two cutters had pulled out there sleeping beds, while Robert went back down the tunnel to check on Jess. The two cutters were running on empty, now that most of the excitement was over. They know knew what was in the last locked room, and it was a major find no matter how you looked at it.

Jess was still in the armory, when Robert found her. She had hopped up onto a worktable and used her backpack as a hard and lumpy pillow. She already was deep asleep, and Robert would bet. That she would start to snore any second now. Robert left her there and went back out to his rental truck and pulled out his sleeping bag, with his thick pillow and sleeping pad. He was too old to "like" sleeping on the hard and lumpy ground. He was a jumpship commander after all, and not a ground pounder or tank driver.

Robert woke himself up early. The sun was just starting to rise, and you could just barely tell the difference between a white thread and a black one at arm's length. Any more sunlight, and it would have spot lighted him out in the open on the exposed side of the truck and tent combination. He relieved the current guard, so he could get some sleep and be useful later by Jess with her mission. Robert drew some water from a large container and started heating it up, by the open and still burning campfire. He added some more ready firewood to increase the heat production, for the water and soon to be needed warm food.

Robert did not need the night vision device, which the last guard had been using for his watch. Robert just had to keep a look out with his own eyes, but he also had a set of cheap locally unmanned sensors that had been placed around the camp by this team. These devices were to help alert them; in case anyone might come near them while they were working. Besides it had more scouting skills than any of the duty guards. It would have been different if one or two of them had been first trained as Infantry or scouts. It was around eight in the morning local time, when the rest of the prospecting team joined Robert around the fire. Even Jess came stumbling out of the tunnel, not long after the other two had taken seats around the nicely burning fire.

After a quick meal, Jess and Robert went back into the tunnel. They would be working alone for at least a few hours, before they would be joined by anyone else. That was okay with Robert, because this next part was not the most fun for anyone to have to do. That would come later, but this had to be done.

Jess and Robert were able to complete the detailed search of the latrine and the kitchen, before they were joined by a third person. The Latrine and gym were of no use to anyone, but a scrap dealer. The equipment was not worth the effort to move, and the lockers had been cleaned out already. Even the extra bath towels seemed to be gone. They had not rotted into dust, but they had been removed from their holders. Maybe by the unit that had been here, and had left for the last time. This was noted by Jess and Robert, to be added to their post mission reports. They did find what was left of the small washcloths, as a pile of dirt in the marked holder.

What the three had found in the kitchen, had cause the three to talk and do some on the spot brainstorming. Everything had been removed from the kitchen. It was almost like someone had packed up all of the food and had moved it out of the facility. The only thing that had remained behind, had been the odd stack of flatware and plates left in bare cupboards. These were just the generic types and not the unit embossed items, that had been found before in sites like this. It was odd that these had been taken, and there was little doubt that they had been taken. There was a marked area in the shelves for them, that was very empty of anything but a thin layer of dust.

The only thing that they had found of interest, was a plastic map mounted on one of the walls. It showed some of what might be beyond the cave in. It looked like there was at least another four rooms down the line from the location of the cave in. The little map did not have that much information about what those rooms might be, only that they had firefighting and air filtration equipment for emergency use. You would just have to dig threw an unknown number of tons of rock and dirt, to get to them.

Robert and Jess knew that the first room from the cave in, should be the main ammunition supply point (ASP) for the platoon. Then you would have a land vehicle maintenance area, another barracks, and then a small hospital or medical bay. After that? They had no information, unless they found something in the arms room near the exit hatch. The map did prove that there was more to this tunnel that might be of value, besides what they had found already.

Jess was showing Robert the images that she had taken of the arms room. With her intelligence background, she knew how to quickly and expertly record what had been in the arms room. When there third person showed back up, from a latrine break. He had his own noteputor, and that brought the number to three in that room. Each one of them had at least two different camera settings that could be used. They went about the business of going into each locker and drawer in the arms room. As they were going around the room. They could see that some of the weapons were missing. It was by the open slots in the different weapons racks, as they passed the cameras viewfinders over them in a steady sweep.

When Robert made it to the location where the crews served weapons were placed, the only ones that were present were the tripod only mountable weapons. All of the weapons that were modified to be mounted on a vehicle of any kind were also missing. There should have been half a dozen of them, according to the empty slots in the racks. But all of those spots that should have held the heavy weapons were empty. It was possible that they never had been there in the first place, but Robert did not think so. If the SAS needed or just wanted something? They would have gotten it, one way or the other. Most of the time they would get three or four of them, according to rumor.

Robert had them load up first the jeep, that he had rented, with some of the items from the treasure chest. It only had about a 250kg cargo capacity, according to the manual. They also could not put anything in the small SUV. That someone passing him might notice, that he was carrying something odd or SLDF in origin. That meant that most of the space in the seating area was not used, no matter how much they might want to. Robert had to get back to the dropships. He needed to plan out a way to clean out this find. It was going to have to be done quietly, and above all it would need to be done secretly.

The group of four loaded a mix of armorer's tools, small weapons, and whatever else would fit around the complete computer system already loaded in the small truck. They used some of Robert's camping gear to pad and conceal the items. Those last two operations took longer than loading the vehicle had taken in the first place.

Robert drove slowly and carefully down the creek bed and dirt trails. He kept the speed down all the way back to the hardtop road, that would lead him back to the drop port. He did keep his side arm within easy reach of his firing hand during, the entire trip back to the ships. He was carrying treasure, and it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

Robert continued taking his time on the drive, even after he got into higher traffic capable roads. He was using the time to try to work out a plan in his head, on how to empty their find without drawing any unwanted attention by locals or anyone else. There was not an HPG on the planet, but there were ships leaving this system at least every other week or so. He hoped to be able to leverage the find, in such a way. That they might be able to come back and find out what else might be hidden in the facility. He thought that they had only scratched the surface of Jess's find. When Robert passed a wide field that had been filled with beef cattle, which were waiting to go to one of the local slaughterhouses? That was when a new idea started to form in his mind. Now all he had to do, was fill in the holes of the base plan or idea.

When he was closer to the drop port. He called ahead and made sure that the large main loading ramp was down and locked, on the Maru. He drove the rented jeep right onto the drop port without having to be inspected by the half-asleep guard, and then right up the loading ramp of the massive Mule class dropship. He pulled the jeep off to the side of the open hatch, so that it was not visible from the outside no matter what angle they might have on the open dropship hatch. Waiting for him was the dropship commander and the Cargo Master. Both people had a very concern look on their face, when Robert exited the mud-covered off-road SUV. He had not showered, shaved, or changed clothes since he had come on shift early the day before. This was very out of character for the mission commander.

Robert waved to the two other men to come over. Robert put on his poker face, when he saw that they were walking over to their commander with odd looks on their faces. Robert used the time to open the back of the small cargo compartment. He only had to wait for a few minutes till they joined him, there at the open back of the rented small SUV. He was playing dirty pool, but sometimes you had to do what you needed to do as a commander. Him having fun was just an added benefit.

"Gentlemen! It would seem, that Jess has been right all along. She has found two entrances to an underground bunker or bunkers, while she was out in the woods. Now both were blocked a few hundred meters into the underground areas. The second one had a few rooms that we were able to check out, before the tunnels were blocked by cave-ins. But at least one was not a dry hole."

With the last words, Robert pulled off a tarp, that had been used to cover what had been hidden underneath it. What was now on display, were a pair of old laser pistols with clearly visible SLDF markings on the grips. "I want this truck emptied, and everything put in shipping containers. I want those containers separated from anything else on board. Command will want to make sure we do not contaminate or lose any of it, before we can get back home. I also want it under a guard with a concealed weapon. And I want everyone watching what is going around the ships from now on, just in case until we leave this system."

Robert said the last with a slight smile on his face. "The area that the bunkers are in, might be one of the hot spots for others looking for the old SLDF depot. We are going to have to recover what we can. All without letting anyone else know what we are doing, or that we had found there. I have a plan and it starts with the red meat shipment, that is due to be delivered to us in the morning."

Over the next few minutes, Robert gave a rundown of what he was planning to two of his senior staff. It did not go over well, but neither of the other two men could come up with a better plan on such short notice. They would just have to make do with what they had, or what their commander had pulled out the place he had been sitting on while he had been driving back to the drop port.

 **Notes:**

 **Cate's Hold** : I did not know about this planet, until I had been working on this project for a while. I just could not have the SLiE not stop by this place, after I found out about it. It also would make sense that they would have also been looking for the old base on the other supply runs.

 **Lostech prospecting** : How do you keep what you are doing quiet from those around you? How do you balance risk vs reward? I was thinking it was a lot like the old gold rush days with claim jumping. I had a run in with someone looking for the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine while on a trail ride in the Superstition Mountains. Let's just say that it almost got ugly, and all I was doing was looking to make a cat hole.

 **Data on old SLDF:** It is very hard to find any canon information on Brain Cache, so I just kind of made it up.


	18. Chapter 18 9 Jan 3047

**Chapter 18**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **9 Jan 3047**

 **Before sunrise Day 3 on planet Cate's Hold**

Early the next morning, right after the ship's crews had finished the morning meal. A local supply factor showed up with the order of processed cattle, that had been prepared for shipment across the stars. The Cargo Master and a crew went out to inspect the food, before they would load the delivery of the meat and make payment. This had already been agreed on, when the request had been made and accepted by the two different groups.

After a few minutes, a loud ship wide announcement was made on the dropship. It said that Captain Copeland was needed on the loading ramp. Robert left the cargo bay, that he just happened to be working in, and headed to the outside of the ship. There were a lot of witnesses to his location, to include some of the locals. They had been checking out a computer system that was for sale. It was all very staged. But it was so well staged, that no one could tell that it was staged. Not even most of the crewmembers on the dropships knew that it was staged.

When he made it down the loading ramp? Robert was joined by the Cargo Master, the dropship's captain, and one of the cargo master's helpers. They also had the meat factor, truck driver, and someone in uniform. The last one might have been police or some other kind of local law enforcement. When Robert was within speaking, without shouting, distance. He announced his presence. The three crewmembers turned to face Robert, as he finished his approach to the group. He made sure to have just the right look on his face.

Robert looked around the group of individuals in the shade of the Mule class dropship. On the ground were three plastic covered frozen cow halves, that had been pulled out of the shipping container. He could not identify, why he had been called out, by what he saw going on around him. That is unless he had a crystal ball, or he already knew what was going on before he had exited the cargo ship.

"So, what is going on gentleman and ladies?" Robert made sure to give a slight head bow to the females standing to his front.

The meat factor was a woman, and on this planet she more or less acted as one of the systems key leaders. In the MC women were in most of the positions of power or authority, in this small interstellar nation. This would be one of the few times, that he had to deal with a person in this senior of a position. Captain Copeland's people always tried to keep a lower profile on these resupply runs. The meeting with so high ranked a person in MMM on this run, had been a first, for Robert. And it still makes Robert somewhat uncomfortable, thinking about being that visible. Robert had no problem sticking it to ComStar, but meeting planetary leaders still made him a little uncomfortable. That had been the job of the more senior leaders on a supply run.

The Cargo Master was the first to speak of the group, to Robert. "Sir, the meat failed our spot inspections." His delivery was soft, flat, and to the point. It started everyone on the other side of him, to raise their voices to get their own point across. All to counter what the dropship's Cargo Master had just thrown into the air.

Robert just picked up the handheld testing device, that was sitting on the edge of the container. This device was old tech, and as a matter of fact. This little handheld testing lab had been made in the MC, this year. But it was very innovative and worthwhile to bring a few back home. The Cargo Master had picked up a few of the handheld testing devices, before they left the last system. The MC had a very large and advanced, for the Inner sphere, medical skills and anything that related to health and health care. He walked over to one of the laid-out meat carcasses. He opened the airtight closing device, that the meat was in, and pushed the end of the tester against the frozen meat. The device beeped and showed a red light. That was all it needs to do, to say that it had come up contaminated. So, Robert re-ran the test on the other two animal halves.

All three of them came up bad, according to the tester in Robert's hands. Robert looked at the others and showed them the red light, that said the meat was not safe to eat. The woman looked like she had eaten a lemon. Robert ran the self-test on the device and waited a few seconds, for it to complete. He showed it was green. Then he re-ran the test on all three hunks of frozen meat, again. He would show the results each time he tested the beef to the group. When he had completed the last tests? He came back to the group. He handed the tester back to his Cargo Master, before saying anything to the group of locals.

"There bad, send the whole load back. What is the issue Cargo Master? You know the rules. They fail? Then they go back." He looked around the group of locals and tilted his head a little to one side. He now needed to test his acting skills. "What's the problem?"

The woman was sputtering, and her voice went to almost to a shake your bones level. "The meat is safe! I have never had a load refused before!"

Robert tilted his head again but to the other side, like he was thinking about what the woman had said. Then he locked eyes with the tall and muscular woman. "Well, there is a first time for anything. Don't you think? We have a policy, that we will not take a delivery for any food that fails a safety check. And we will not use that factor, again. If we sell bad food to another planet? It will be us that will get in all kinds of trouble, not you. I will not risk getting anything from fined, jail time, to having one, or all of my ships seized by some local government flunky. All due to someone else selling us bad supplies, and we did not check them."

Robert looked back to one of his crew. "Contact any of the other local meatpackers and let them know what we are looking for, and when we need it by. Officer?" Robert turned to the uniformed woman off to one side. She had been the only one who had not said a word, since he had arrived on the scene. "I think we are done. Would you please escort the factor, and her goods away from my ships? I have to make arrangements for a few trucks and loaders."

Robert did not wait for the officer to acknowledge his orders. He turned and walked back into the cooler air of his ship. As he was walking into the ship. He thought to himself, that he had just played dirty pool, and it could ruin this factor. It would not take long for the information about the "bad meat" to get around the planet and then off. When that word got around, that she had tried to pass off bad food supplies to him. It would make others very shy about using her, as a supplier. No one would want to risk that the same thing might happen to them. They would just quietly shift their business to someone else. It would not take long, for her to have her position as one of the key leaders of this planet threatened.

The tester was new, but somehow it had been broken. The Cargo Master had decided he wanted to keep it, for some reason known only to him. Whenever you ran the self-test? It would come up green, but one of the test strips would stay in place. That meant when you tested something? It would read the test strip, and not the food you were testing. Whatever it tested, would come up with the failed test indicators light. It sure had come in handy today, and Robert was glad he remembered that little device while he had been driving. That just goes to show you, that you should be careful what you discard. It may be useful later.

Robert already had a list of contact numbers set out, when the meat failed. They were on a tight timeline, and he did not want to waste any more time than he has to. By his third contact? He had a heavy-duty cargo truck with a storage container rated for frozen food, and two local loader exoskeletons ready to roll. The Exoskeletons were very basic gear. It would turn a single person into a good-sized all terrain forklift, that also was in a small package. The hard part had been convincing the rental agency, that he did not need operators for the Exoskeletons.

His next call was to a meatpacking plant that was along the right road, near where Jess had found her little find. He gave them a ring and set up a time, in a few hours, for his people to come out. They would check out what the local had in stock, on such short notice. At this point it did not matter what the local had or the cost. His location was the most important thing to Robert.

Robert's SUV, heavy truck, two loaders, cold container, and six additional personnel left to go to the first facility before local noon that very day. All of the people in the two trucks, where crewmembers from the two cargo dropships under his command. Robert was not going to let any of the locals anywhere near this mission. The first stop for the trucks, was not at any meat packing plant. It was at an isolated stretch of road, out in the middle of nowhere. The larger truck had quickly pulled off the main road and found the smaller off-road truck, that Jess had been using. The larger truck backed up its cargo bed, so that the two trucks were tail to tail. When they were almost touching, the back of the cold truck, opened up. Now it could let a loader suit leave and walk into the covered area of the other truck.

The rest of the ground crew started to move folded up heavy duty shipping crates, from the larger truck into the smaller one. Each of these hard-plastic crates, when it was unfolded and locked, would be 1.2m long x 1.0m wide and the same tall. They each were rated to hold 100kg of load, without warping or collapsing. As each person carried arm loads of those flat boxes to the other truck. They would pick up a load of weapons, tools, and other things from the smaller truck. They would be hidden in the cold truck, until it could be off loaded in to one of the two dropships.

Jess and her team had loaded as much as they could, by hand. But they were limited by only being able to move, what the three people could move by themselves. Then there was the limited amount of time they had to make the long walking trips. After these items had been transferred, the back of the off-road truck was covered for the trip out to the main road.

The now empty off-road 5ton cargo truck left the area. It was taking two new people, to help load the off-road truck with one of the loader suits tied down in the back. The cold truck, with its hidden cargo, the remaining loader, and the second four door SUV commanded by the Cargo Master continued down the main road. They needed to "see" the beef, that they needed to conceal their plan with.

The truck made it to the first meat packing facility and met the manager of the facility at the main office. The locals were more than happy to show this new customer, what they had for sale. They were going to sell the meat for almost the same price, as what the factor would have sold it to these outsiders. And the facility would not have to pay the travel cost or fees charged by the factor to complete this sale. That was a lot more, than they would have sold it to the factor for. But the outsiders should and would not know that little bit of information. All of the frozen beef and beef analog were tested, and after it had past the testing. The heavy loader Exo-suit, manned by one of Copeland's people, would put the meat inside the cold shipping container.

This did not go quickly, because Copeland had ordered that each package was to be checked a second time before it was loaded. It was advertised that the visitors just wanted to be on the safe side. This was expected by anyone watching. Because the story had gotten around already about the tainted meat, that someone had tried to sell to them earlier in the day. A dark covering had been hung from the inside top of the truck. This helped to make sure that no one could see deep into the truck. The thick narrow rectangle hung plastic, that was normal for a cold truck finished the camouflage, cover and concealment of the old Star League items at the very front of the cold container.

As the rented trucks pulled out of the meat packing plant, a message was forwarded to them from the dropships. It simply was telling them. That Jess was not ready for a second pick up, yet. Not even with the delay they had made at this meat packing plant. That was a wrinkle they would have to work through. The Cargo Master decided that they would not change the plan. He would just have his team wait for a while at the point, until the smaller cargo truck showed up.

When it did finally show up at the hidden location. They were able to quickly off load almost two tons of the old SLDF stuff off of the smaller truck and hide it behind the frozen meat in the larger truck. Jess's truck pulled away and went down another low traffic road and returned for another load to be brought out of the tunnel.

The two trucks made it back to the space port, just as the local sun was setting. A mech sized power loader was waiting for them to return outside of the dropships. It would lift and take the whole climate-controlled container off the truck and carry it into the dropship. The two rented trucks would stay outside and visible to anyone watching. They were safe under the guns and missile launchers of the three dropships on this drop port.

The cargo hauling mech slowly carried the partially filled cargo container into the lowest cargo bay of the Mule dropship. The hull access ramp was pulled up and the hatch had been closed behind the haulermech, so that no one could see into the ship. As soon as the power loader had finished setting it down. One of the deck crew was plugging it into the larger ships power supply, to run the cooling systems.

The container was opened and crews under the watch full eyes of the senior Cargo Master, the Ship's Captain, and Captain Copeland went into three different areas in the container. Each of those senior leaders, would look at each load of the found SLDF equipment, as it was pulled out of the steal box by the armload. The Cargo Master would give directions to each of the emerging crewmembers, on were to store the priceless things coming out of the cold shipping container.

When the last piece of equipment was removed. Captain Copeland ordered the cooks to select some of the meat freshly brought in and serve everyone a nice steak dinner on all three ships mess halls. With the coming of the Colonials, the fresh beef supply had been stretched very thin back home. It had already gotten to the point. That it was now too expensive for the average person to have a fresh cut, thick steak more than once or twice a month.

The meal tonight would have a quality of beef that few had ever had in their lives, counting before the Colonials had arrived. It was a way to reward the crews as part of the historic find, that Jess and her crew had found. It went over very well with the crews of all three ships, as pounds and pounds of fine red meat were cooked, cut, and eaten with gusto.

While one crew was enjoying a massive steak dinner, another part of the crew was having a camping meal around an open fire. This fire was under the open skies, and they were not breathing recycled air while they were eating. The two additional personnel, that had come in when the off-road truck had returned after dropping off the first load. Had quickly unloaded the loader Exo-suit that was there to help move the 400kg scout suits towards the exit. It took some time to move the metal hatch that was blocking the way for this limited mobility machine, but the Exo-suit had proven useful at this task as well. The heavy hatch was moved to the back of the tunnel and out of the way, even if it fell over while a team was moving in the rest of the tunnel.

It was getting late in the afternoon, when the first of the folded-up Nighthawk suits was loaded onto the back of the off-road truck. It had upset Jess, that they would not be able to have as much cargo ready to transfer to the other truck as they had planned. The delay in moving the cut hatch, was caused by having only one suit to work with. It would have worked faster to have both suits, but Robert could only find two of the loading suits for rent on such short notice. It would have looked odd if one was not "seen" by the outside world. Keeping one back on the dropships could explain only one being seen while the Cargo Master was out looking at meat.

When he had transmitted this plan? It was hoped that Jess would have two of the suits, to help move the heavy equipment. It took some work getting the timing right, but once the loader suit had left the arms room. The rest of the crew would reenter the room to load the folding plastic crates, that had been sent to them with the loose equipment found there. They hit a good rhythm pretty quickly, and they had ten folded up Nighthawk PA(L) suits and a few of the boxes filled and loaded into the off-road truck. Before they knew it, they ran into an issue.

They had to stop loading the off-road cargo truck, and actually unload some of the plastic packing crates. They had overloaded the suspension of the truck without even noticing it, until after the fact. They were able to fix the problem, and the second load left the area. They learned the lesson of the overloading and they were quickly able to get another load done and get settled in for the rest of the night. They were tired enough, that sleep was not a problem. Keeping an alert guard, was not as easy to maintain after a hard afternoon of work and a large meal. Most of the group had loaded the small truck three times today, and even the two new people had helped load it twice. That was a lot of work, no matter how you looked at it.

Early the next morning the two trucks pulled away from the dropships, so they could go to a second meat packing plant and "view" the offerings. The new location for meeting up with Jess was sent via a coded message, on the radios that they had taken with them. The combined groups off loaded the small truck into the emptied cold truck, faster than they had loaded the off-road cargo truck the night before. Then it returned to get another load from the camp site

The next meat packing facility that the rented cold truck stopped at had more time to plan for the upcoming sale. They had more weight, and more varieties of meats ready for the off worlders to see. It still did not even come close to filling up the over large container the truck carried. Having to deal with all of those varieties had caused a huge delay in finishing the loading, which caused a delay in the cold truck meeting with the off-road truck. It was during this delay, that traffic started to increase on the road that the cold truck was taking. It was not like Robert knew the high traffic times, on any of this planet's roads.

The cold truck was not able to take the turn off that they needed to, without a high chance of being seen by the locals. With security not guaranteed. The Cargo Master canceled the second pickup of the day and told them to go for the backup plan. The off-road truck would pull onto the main road, about an hour after the cold truck had passed the turn off. It would make a "supply pick up" for the camp from the dropships, before returning to the camp site Jess had set up. This was riskier, but the lax security of the drop port was risked, and it was not that uncommon of an event. It just would give the camp site less time to refill their truck for the next day.

The cold truck made it back to the dropships without drawing much attention to themselves, it was only a rental cold truck after all. The only people who really noticed the two trucks returning, was the meat factor. She was watching from her office in the drop port main building, and near the large vehicle side of the entrance. She was still reviewing the reports from her informants. They had told her what these off worlders had been buying and how much, so far. She had an almost complete list, of what was in the cold shipping container on the truck. The one that had just passed her building, heading towards the three grounded ships.

The large truck and the smaller one, which was acting as an escort, were met outside of the dropship by a waiting loader mech. The Factor watched as the cargo container was lifted off the truck and carried into the Mule class dropship. What she could not see, was that the shipping container was being unloaded inside the dropship. By now a second freezer shipping container had been purchased and hooked up into the power system of the dropship. It had its own power supply that was rated to power the unit for weeks, but it was considered just as an emergency use item.

All the meat was moved to its new container, that would stay in the dropship until it was off loaded on New Circe. Then the cargo handling equipment moved the ten scout suits and filled plastic crates to where they would stay until they made it back home. That had been from the morning pick up from the camp site. All of this was done without anyone that lived on this planet knowing, what was really being moved around inside the egg-shaped ship.

The evening was quiet for the three dropships crew, but after there last stop. They were at what other dropships would have said, was a heavy crew watch for the three dropships. When the camper's truck showed up? It was driven straight into the lowest cargo bay. It was also quickly unloaded, and then reloaded with fresh and now unfrozen steaks. They were already to be fire grilled, back at the camp/loading site. Robert would have loved to have sent more personnel, but he did not know how to get them back without being noticed by the locals. Jess would be taking Robert's rented SUV out with her to help with the transport of the additional bodies, that were already under her command.

The third day was a repeat of the Day 2's events. This time they were able to do two cargo transfers between the two large trucks, without any surprises or other issues because of the locals. They were able to also stop at two different meat suppliers, and filled the areas covering the weapons in the cargo carrier nicely. While the meat carrying truck was going back to the space port, it was not drawing any unusual attention. The off-road truck and camp were not so lucky. Anyone who was seen as an off planet "looker" was watched, just in case they found "something" on this planet.

The off-road truck was followed, from a distance, by an old four passenger off road capable wheeled transport that had seen better days. It did not go unnoticed by the big wheeled truck, as it made its way back to the camp site. The camp went on alert, but they did not stop working for long. The work was too important to come to a complete stop to many times, and they had been expecting to be found by the locals. While the last of the equipment was loaded into the cargo truck, an alarm would periodically go off as the outlying sensors were tripped by someone in the evening and night.

Every time this happened. The loading would have to stop, while two armed personnel would leave the camp to check out what had happened as stealthily as they could. Repeatedly one of the pair would see someone running from the area, on their hand-held night vision systems. After the third time this had happened. Jess had to notify Captain Copeland, that they might have been noticed by someone or some group of locals. Once was an accident, twice was an incident, the third time was enemy action. When you were dealing with millions of C-Bills worth of equipment? You had to be prepared.

Finally, the last of the equipment was loaded onto the off-road truck. It was a little overweight, but it only had to make it down the trail one more time. And besides, it was only a rental. After everything was loaded, in the dark. Jess and her team used the truck's blocking position to cover their acts of re-sealing the exit hatch and resetting the camouflage that had kept this place hidden for so many years. Jess was now thankful, that she had been careful about the removal of that camouflage. By the time the camp settled in for some sleep, the hatch into the bluff was as invisible as it had been before Jess had found it.

The only marks would be the campfire hole, rib and other meat bones, and some truck tires prints or ruts. Jess was not happy. She was hoping that instead of covering their tracks, in the night. They could have used the rented loader suit to move some of the cave in and go a bit deeper into the tunnels. She was sure, that they could have gotten a hole big enough. Then she could slip through and gotten deeper into the rest of the SLDF facility.

As the campfire burned. She had to keep reminding herself of the old saying. It was about one bird in the hand versus two in the bush. Every time she said it in her mind, it still made her mouth taste like old shoes. Even with a huge steak dinner sitting in her stomach, and all of the hard work. She did not sleep well, for the rest of the night. Every time she closed her eyes. She had visions of row after row of SLDF equipment waiting for her and her people to claim, and then be used in the battles with the Cylons or those clanbasterds.

Before the local sun had risen, the rented truck left the creek side campsite for the drop port. The seats and small cargo area in the cab, had been needed by Jess and her team to get out here. Now it was not necessary, and it would be helpful to keep the weight down. The driver had volunteered to do it alone. Jess and the rest of the team would be following in the small SUV, that she had driven out. The drive back had everyone on pins and needles. They had eyes out and looking for anything. Sometimes they saw something, but mostly it was just their minds playing tricks on them.

While Robert was completing some reports, in the meeting room. He was contacted by the bridge. He was needed at the main loading ramp on the Mule. He was told that there was a delegation of locals who wanted to talk to him, and one of them was in a Police or other type of uniform. It was noted that the uniform person was armed.

" _Well this could be bad,"_ thought Robert as he left the room. He made sure to grab his thin computer, just in case he needed it. It had a copy of "his books" for as good as a copy could be, that was only vaguely correct. They were called The Book of Lies for many centuries, before the Star League failed. And they were still called that, in certain circles.

Instead of going downstairs, he went up, so that he could stop by the bridge of the ship. Now he could see who was waiting for him outside on the ship's sensors. When he displayed the security image on one of the bridge screen units. He could see the Cargo Master, one of his assistants, the meat Factor, a person in uniform, and another person standing by a large coffin like crate in a rumpled ship's suit. Robert relaxed, just a little but not much.

 _"It was time to get my acting chops on."_ He thought and grimaced. He thought something like this might happen, before they were able to break atmosphere. He went back down to his cabin and checked his uniform. He also took time and reviewed his notes, before he had to take the stage. He went over about a dozen different lines and thought about each one. All before coming up with three other lines that he might use as he walked the ship's corridors. He did that, just as he hit the top of the exit ramp off the dropship.

Robert walked down the loading ramp and kept going until he was beside the large rented cold truck. The rental company was not due to pick it up till around noon, today. It was just sitting and waiting for them to complete the agreement, it had already been paid for. The Cargo Master and the Factor were just starting to get to the point of using loud and outside voices, when Robert closed the final distance to the group.

Robert had his game face on and fixed firmly in place, but there was not a hint of a smile on his face. He had not liked using the Factor like he had, but the mission had required it. He had, and he would have done it again, for just one of those Nighthawk suits. Now he had a need to see what cards she had to play, how smart she was, or maybe how smart she thought she was. Robert took the bull by the horns and spoke up to cut through the yelling.

"Factor, what can I do for you?" Robert made a show of looking around at each of the people, which included his own personnel. "I hope you don't want to sell supplies to us. We have a set, and published policy. That if you fail a safety test once. We will not use that company again. I understand that it is a normal policy, in this part of space."

The Cargo Master threw both of his arms up to the air. "Sir! That is what I have been trying to tell them, for almost an hour now." An exasperated Cargo Master said throwing his arms in the air again and turning around as he spoke. He was now facing Robert. It was a very good bit of acting on display, and Robert made a note to himself not to play cards with this man. The Cargo Master was fraking good at this kind of game.

It was the uniformed female officer, that spoke in a very even tone in reply to Robert. "Sir. We just would like you to retest this load, if you have the time. Failing a health safety inspection, is a major problem. We want to cover all the bases, before we close the investigation on this issue. That is what we have been trying to convey to your…. man.'' The officer could not help but put a little bit of discuss in her voice as she said the last word.

The Factor had not said a word, but Robert could tell that it was killing her not to be the one leading this charge. She had locked eyes on Robert, as soon as he had opened his mouth. She had a target lock like a Cylon missile, and it was not going to let up. Robert still needed to play his part in the game today. If he did not? The whole thing would fall apart, and the old SLDF base might be also lost to his people.

"Cargo Master. Is this code the same, as what came in a few days ago?" He was pointing at the coffin like freezer, that now he could see held some kind of red beef like meat in a standard shipping wrap for that kind of product.

The Cargo Master assistant pulled a scanner out of a pocket of his ships coveralls and ran it over the light metal tag on the meat. He took the readout, and then checked it against the list of numbers from the first delivery of meat those few days ago. The younger man did not know about the games, that the Captain and the Cargo Master had been playing. As far as he was concerned, the meat had truly failed the health test they had run on it. He knew something was up, but he did not know what. He did know about the SLDF bunker, but not why the failed meat had a role to play in letting them recover the prize.

"Sir, the numbers match. But there is no way to tell if they are exactly the same animal, or not. It is just that the numbers on the shipping cover match the lots that we saw from the other day." He just raised his eyebrows at his commander and waited for word to be given to escort the locals away from the dropships.

Robert nodded to the younger man, and then pulled the handheld test lab from the hook on the Cargo Master's waist belt with an easy motion. He ran the self-test on the device, and then touched the exposed red and white marbled meat. When it processed and displayed the results? He turned the device to show the crowd, that it had returned an unsafe result. Just like the device had done a few days ago.

This time the Factor could not hold it in any longer. "Captain Copeland! These are exactly the same animals, that we were dealing with the other day. I made sure that they were not mixed with other packages, just in case it was contaminated! I asked Captain Stanton to run tests on this delivery using the same labs that are used for her crime scene work, as well as the full health department rig at the hospital. They come back safe! Every test has come back that they are clean and safe to eat! You could eat them raw! And it still would be safe!"

"Factor! I don't know anything about the labs you used. The MC shipping standards say to use this type of tester. That is if you want to be listed as a 1A grade shipper."

Robert held up the handheld lab, to show what he was talking about. Robert let his arm drop, and then he walked over to the large cargo truck. A second handheld tester was within easy reach, so he pulled it down. He returned to the group and ran the self-test on both devices. Both returned a green light showing that each had passed and were safe to use. He reached down and tested the meat again, with both test devices. The results were not the same, just as he knew it would be. Robert had the Cargo Master leave a "good" portable tester in the truck and another one near an airlock, just in case.

"Well, that is not good." Robert tried to twist his arm a little, to show them the results. He then tested each of the three large packages of meat in the shipping coffin. Robert was looking at the green and red lights on the devices, with a deep frown on his face.

"Jacob go get another tester out of the cargo bay and make it quick." The way he delivered the statement. It was intended to show some anger, but not too much, just a touch to add to his display. Robert hoped that he was not over playing it, but you had to push it sometimes. The crewmember returned to the group and passed the asked for device to his boss. The man was visibly out of breath from running the entire way to the dropship and back. With his long legs, that had been a very fast trip for the "twenty" something man.

Each of the three machines were used, again on the three exposed carcasses. The results were that two of the handheld labs showed that the meat was safe to eat, and the other showed that it was not safe. Robert had a deep frown on his face, as he walked from the cold case of meat to the Cargo Master. Robert passed the "Bad" device to the man, like someone might pass an old-style football to the chest of a running back with a dull thump.

Robert returned to the Factor, as the Cargo Master walked back to the dropship with his toy in his hands and a well-hidden smile. Robert looked at the two women. Robert was working out how exactly to pull this off, he was betting the fines would be high. But even one Royal class mech could be worth several to almost ten million C-Bills. He had hoped, that they would be on the burn going out of the system before this came up. But the Factor showing up now was not a showstopper for him. That is, as long as he did not go to jail or something like that.

Robert picked one of the three options that they had worked out, when they had war gamed this plan. Robert looked right into the eyes of one of the women. "Officer. There has been a slander committed against the Factor, and I am at fault. It seems that our two-month-old lab tester, was defective. I can show you the sells receipt, but how do we fix this?"

Officer Stanton stiffened, as the words the man said sank into her head. Slander was a legal term and he had just admitted guilt in the crime, in front of witnesses. She was about to say something, but the man was not finished with what he wanted to say. She just kept her mouth shut, for now. Like most law enforcement personnel. She preferred it, when other people talked. That way she could try to pick out the smallest of lies, in what they were saying. She knew that the more they talked. The harder it was to keep a lie hidden, from someone that was looking to find those lies.

Robert turned to match eye contact with another of the women. "Factor. I have bought a little over 40,000 MC dollars in products from other venders, that we should have been buying from you. I would think a fine is in order, to make reparations and compensation. It is also for the expenses, that are going to be incurred repairing the damage to your reputation after we are gone."

Robert now turned his head, so that he was looking at the officer of the law again. "I think 400,000 MC dollars should cover any fines. Don't you think Officer?" That was a lot of money. But it would clean his soul for the Frame job, that he had worked to put the Factor in. Right now, they had money to spend. It was time to make it right. Besides, it looked like they were going to be coming back this way, in the not too distant future. He knew that higher command would send someone back, to work in what Jess had found.

Both the Factor and the Officer were at first stunned by the amount the man was offering, to settle this dispute with. Normally it was only a thousand MC dollars in fines and a week in jail, for something like this. That was a lot of money for most people to come up with, on the spot, to pay for a fine. The Factor was being offered full reimbursement for lost sales, and an almost 10 to 1 in fines. That was a lot of money. Even if the Factor lost the next three or four shipments, to the bad press she had received. She still would be able to show a profit for the year, and the next year, no problem. That alone, should be enough for her to keep her job and position of influence.

The officer looked over at the Factor and was about to say something, when she noticed the Factor giving this man an odd look. She did not really know how to take the look and the feeling, she was getting, from the powerful meat factor. If this had been a criminal action? She would have known what to do. She had only agreed to come along, in case this conflict got physical.

"Factor? It seems like a fare offer of compensation has been made by the Captain. Does it meet with your agreement? I will have to write and post a report, to the effect that the good Commander was fined. All because he had faulty testing equipment. That would clear you of any suspicion of wrongdoing, Factor." The Officer was splitting her time between looking at Captain Copeland, and the locally powerful planetary Meat Factor.

The Factor was studying the man in front of her. Her gut was telling her something was off. She could not put her finger on it, yet. But something was off with this man. The man was being very generous, and she did not know why. Maybe there was still some meat on this bone? Now, to try to find out what his game was.

"Captain Copeland, that is very nice of you. That is something that is rare enough to find out this way. And it is enough to raise some warning flags." She wanted to start digging. She needed to scratch the itch at the base of her neck about this whole situation. Part of her mind told her it was a risk, to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Robert grinned at the woman and went with the "Answer C" in his mind. "Factor? Well let's just call it, a matter of Honor. One of my Cargo Master's duties is to make sure everything we use to checkout any cargo, works properly. He failed in that task, and I didn't catch it. Don't worry about the money. I'm going to dock some of his pay, to cover some of it. I'm also going to take his conflict pay bonuses, for the next two years or so to make up for some of it. It's nothing too bad, but enough. So that he and his subordinates will double check each piece of equipment twice, before it's used again. I will pay, to get some of that preparedness."

He said the last part with a sly grin on his face. "This could have turned out a lot worse, than it did. What could have happened? If that tester lab had tested something as clean, and that something was not? Someone could have got sick, or even maybe have died from that error. Besides, we may be back this way again. Having one of the major Factors on the planet upset with me? Well that could be bad, for someone in my kind of business."

The Factor was still looking at him, trying to weigh, if this was all on the level or not. Finally, she just gave up on it for now. Like he had said. It was a learning experience, and no one had been hurt by the failure. He also was right, that if she had seen them again, and this problem had not been resolved? She would have held a grudge for a very long time.

"Okay, I can see that. But why didn't you wait to see what the fines might have been, before offering that sum of money?" She was a money person, as far as she was concerned. Everything came down to money sooner, or later.

This was a pointed question, and the truth of it was. He had not wanted or liked, to have almost ruin someone's livelihood. All just so that he could maybe complete a mission, that had not been sanctioned by his government or even higher military command.

"It was an honor thing, but it also is the limit of my cash reserve. I probably should not have told the Officer that, but I don't think the officer will jump the "fines" on me after I made a public offer." Robert was giving both women a sly smile, that he knew most females thought it went between nice to sexy. That had been what his now dead wife had told him, many times before.

The Factor gave a slight nod of her head. That was all making sense, and it fit some pieces together nicely about the behavior of this person. "I'm going to have an uphill battle, to fight the bad press caused by that faulty hand lab of yours. A little bird told me, the other day. That the Captain of the White Rabbit sold a very high-end computer system, to someone who wants to keep it very quiet. Some people, I know, have said it was a Lostech level system. A second one was sold to the local defense supply and intelligence unit, for about 10,000 C-Bills. If you had another one of that type of computer system lying around? My company could use something like that." She gave the man a look, that was almost coy looking. If she was not well known to be the most cast-iron witch in a thirty light year range, it might have worked.

"As a matter of fact. Factor I have one more of those systems we found, for sale. And no one has shown any interest in it." Robert tilted his head down a little. "You know as well, as anyone. That they have value, more than just a sale cost. They also have a very high-status symbol value. If you want the last one? I am willing to sell it to you, but at the same price I sold it to the government and military representative. If any of the pair found out that I just gave one away. Let's just say, they might be just a little upset with me. I don't want to have a supply Factor upset with me, if I can help it. I'm okay with that, if it means that lots of people with access to battlmechs and aerofighters are still happy with me. Sometimes people like that can develop a shoot first, shoot second, and then ask questions about who they were shooting at in the first place. Those people, are the type you do not want to have a mad on for you." Robert had a grin on his face as he finished his line of thinking, which was said out loud. He had thought of that line on the trip out to deal with the Factor, but these two women did not need to know that.

Both women gave a soft chuckle of understanding where the man was coming from, and in most ways. They agreed with his line of thought. The Factor took two steps forward and stuck her right hand out towards the man from off world. "Done deal. When would you like to transfer the funds?"

She was referring to both the money sent to her as compensation, and the C-Bills she was going to pass over along with a request for a receipt for what she was going to pay for the new computer. She would be able to get a tax write off on the buy, and recoup some of the cost of the device at the end of the year. This deal was turning out to be a boon, instead of a bust the way it looked the other day. Besides the fines were not taxable.

Robert reached behind and underneath his ships jacket and pulled out his noteputor. "We can do it now and have it all taken care of before anymore rumors start. Besides the officer can be a witness, to us settling things." Robert was kind of waving the little computer in his hands back and forth. Like a fisherman uses a lure to catch a prize bass.

The Factors face changed, at the sight of the noteputor waving in the air. She looked like she had bit into an apple and found half a worm. "Captain, I am afraid that our planet does not have the infrastructure to transfer funds wirelessly. We will need to go back to my office and use a hard line to complete the transfer. The withdrawal will be done next week, when a chartered mail ship is due to come into our system. I do have a car, if you don't mind riding back with the Police officer and I." She was pointing off to one side, towards a strange long box on a set of bright blue balloon skirts.

Robert smile was full and toothy. "I think as long as you ladies will bring me back to my ships, silver bracelets are not involved, and my accountant can come with us? I think that will be okay." The five people entered the four-door hover car, that Robert would have bet the title to the Maru. That it belonged to the Factor herself, and not the company she worked for. It was too nice to have been a cheap company car. He had seen a few of those around and they all were… dull.

The transfer of funds went without any major issues, after they arrived at the Factor's office. Lora had set up a company account with the Bank of MC. It had turned out that every planet in the MC, had at least one branch for the primary bank of the country. The Factor had and account that the funds could be sent to. The officer had assured Captain Copeland. That the funds should be sent directly to the Factors account because a crime had not been committed, so it was all legal. The Factor did not want to transfer funds to Robert's account, because she "thought" an audit might make it look like there was a kick back involved. She paid for the computer system that was on the way over, in cash.

After the work had been completed. The Factor took them all to Maxine's Steaks for lunch. The meal had a rule set down by the Factor, before they walked through the door. It was that no one was allowed to talk about work, as long as there was food on the table. Robert enjoyed the last full day on planet before having to return to the Dropships and finishing all the work, that was required for the launch back into space.

Robert and the captain of the Lisbon Maru, who had been the delivery person for the computer, had returned to the dropships before Jess and her team had returned from wrapping up the camp site. To find out, that the Camp site team was not back yet caused some concerns. Robert was concerned enough, to radio the two trucks to see if everything was okay. They reported that they were only about 10km from the space port, and that so far everything was okay. They were only being slowed down by traffic. That update did not last. It was only a few minutes later, and Jess called him back on her portable radio.

They reported, that they were now convinced that they were being followed. Robert cut the line, and then called the Maru to pass along a few messages. He put all three of his dropships on full alert. This was just in case things went badly. Next, he also contacted the Officer he had just had lunch with. She was able to raise the alert level of the whole drop port. He was surprised, how easy it was to get her moving to the limit of her authority. She had no problem telling him, exactly what that limit was. And what she would do to him, if he exceeded his. Robert found out that the officer had an impressive turn of phrase, that could make a part of your anatomy try to crawl up into your lower stomach.

These changes were not much, but it was better than nothing. If someone tried to highjack Jess's trucks. The response team from the Drop port that would have been available normally, would be that much quicker in responding. If things did get bad for Jess and her team? They would be quick off the mark. It also gives Robert an excuse, to arm up some of the dropships crew and activate the fire control systems on the three dropships. He could not launch any of his aerofighters, just yet. They were ready, and if he had to pay a fine if he launched them. He would pay them at a drop of a hat, it that was what was needed to protect his people.

When Jess and her two-truck convoy entered the drop port. The car that was following them was stopped at the entry point by the very awake security guards. It did not have a pass to enter the area, and it was turned away by a very alert set of gate guards. Ones that had doubled in number, less than a half hour ago. The officer was able to get some images of the six people in that vehicle, that had been behind the last of the rental trucks. They had not been very happy, that they were not allowed on the drop port landing zone.

The dropship's crew and the campers had the two trucks emptied, before the Officer could make it back to the dropships to update Robert on what had happened at the gate. Robert called the Rental Company and asked them to please pick up their trucks as soon as possible. Jess was supposed to have dropped hers off at the rental office. Robert was willing to pay an extra fee, for them to come pick it up at a common area near the Drop port exit. The same was true of the other vehicles they had been using. Robert wanted them parked away from his ships, so that they could light the plasma engines and not destroy them.

He was worried that whoever had been following them might have tried a little kidnapping, if they caught even a few someone's out and away from anyone else. It just was not worth it, to lose someone this close to lifting out of the atmosphere. Robert asked the police officer, that checked in with him. If they could keep an eye out and gave her an idea of why. He told the Officers that he had a feeling, that they were being targeted for a highjacking or something. The truth was? Robert did not know if they had been a group of Lostech hunters, that was trying to see if we found something. Or maybe they were a ComStar team, that had followed them here after all. He had to many unanswered questions.

Robert had Jess and her whole team in the meeting room for dinner with the three dropship's Captains. It gave the commanding officers a quiet place to have a nice meal, but still talk shop without disturbing the rest of the crew and feeding the rumor mill to heavily. After one of the crewmen had topped off all the drink glasses one last time and had left the room.

Robert looked around to mentally check off each person at the table. He waited for Jess to look up, so that she would know that she was going to have to speak soon. When she put her fork down? Robert thought, that she might be ready to get the meeting started. No one wanted to waste food. So, in place of the normal flow of speak, eat, and then speak some more. It was eat, small talk, eat, then start all of the briefings. It was now time to brief and the real reason for this little get together.

"Okay Jess. We all know that you just got back in from the field site, and there is no way for you to have come up with a complete report yet. But can you give us an overview of your little impromptu mission?"

A round of soft laughter went around the table, that included Jess and her team. The looks that each of the leaders gave the younger woman was of admiration, and not animosity. She had done an amazing job so far from, just what little each one of them had seen being packed down. The rumors were a lot harder to believe.

"Well Sir, we did a rough inventory of the items as we went. None of my team was an expert in weapons, so some of it. We just had to make a guess, on some of the items. We did take more images of everything, and I mean everything that we pulled out of the find. We can have a backup made for the egg heads back home to look at, in a few hours."

She looked down at her noteputor and made some adjustments to it, before she finished. "We found thirty Nighthawk suits. We have no idea if all of them will end up being serviceable, or not. A normal unit should have had two extra suits per squad. That would mean that six suits are not accounted for, to support a full 28 persons SLDF Platoon. Whoever had set the security on the arms room might have thought they were coming back. I think, that it was set for a long-term storage program and not something else more drastic.

Jess looked around. "As far as we can tell. All the O2 and humidity had been pumped out of the room, when it was last locked down. The arms room still had a slight positive pressure from extra nitrogen that had been pumped into the room, to help maintain the weapons. The safety measure of the locking bars should have activated, when we cut the first hole in the inner armor of the hatch. But for some reason, they did not deploy at that time. After being left alone for so many years. Most of the safety and protection measures failed to activate, and even the anti-theft locking bolts had a major delayed in deployment. We have no idea which measure we tripped, and we may never know what had them activate on us. If we had more, even a little more time on site? I would have liked to have taken the cut hatch with us, but it was too heavy. That would have taken one truck load just by itself, to get it out on those trails."

Jess looked back down at her notes. "We found empty spots in some of the weapons racks. We think, that when the unit left last. They loaded up with whatever they thought they might need, and they took it with them and left the rest. We loaded twenty of the Mauser 960 systems. Again, we were not able to test them in any way, before they were packed back down. All of the ready ammunition, for the grenade launcher was missing. As a matter of fact, we did not find one round of any type of ammunition in the arms room at all. We should have found hundreds of rounds of ready ammunition loaded in magazines for the QRF, if nothing else. They must have taken it all with them, along with all most all of the clothes, bedding, and other field items. Even all of the food was missing. We did not find any residue of food, so it was not left behind and then rotted away.

Jess put her hands flat on the table. "What I think happened, was that the unit packed up. It might have been, when the recall for the Exodus was sent out. They wanted to blend in. They took only the weapons that the locals or any of the local house units would have access to, and then hit the road. All of the crew served weapons, that had vehicle mounts were also gone. They did leave behind all of the tripod weapons. They also left behind about 30 pistol type sidearms of different makes, models, and calibers. We also loaded up 20 laser or ballistic rifles, that look to be maybe of four different types when we put them in crates."

Jess took a sip of water and flipped to a new screen on her thin computer screen, and then started talking again. "They did leave less than a dozen Blazer Laser Rifles, and another four support weapons. They are two Heavy Support Pulse Laser type weapons and two Self-Propelled Support Particle Cannons with the ground mounts for them. We found six of the Mk. 2 Man-Portable AA Missile Weapon Launcher systems, but without missiles of course. None of my crew knew what they were. But when we lifted one out of the locking cradle? It had a data plate identifying what they were. I made sure they each were marked with an ink marker, I happened to have, to note what they were. We found in one weapon's locker, a four set of heavy SRM Launchers in it. Again, they were without any rockets for them, and the self-test batteries were dead. I have had some time to read up on them, when we had some down time after the truck was loaded. The version we found. They have a built in HUD, laser range finding, and a night vision system on the launch stick."

She looked up from her computer and made eye contact with Captain Copeland. He was the most well versed in weapons that she knew, beside herself. When he did not make a comment, she kept on talking after a few seconds break. "I don't know if we have any of those last two types of weapons, back home. The Colonials, I think, will absolutely flip if they can start making these heavy SRM launchers. A few of their ground troopers, or maybe a squad armed with those things? They could take down one of the new Praetorian combat machines, we were warned about."

She was holding the last bit of information, until the end. She wanted to get the most bang for it, so she took her time. She was faking, that she was reviewing her notes again. She had been told about the Cargo Master and Roberts, little display of acting as a briefing technique. She wanted to see if she could match it.

"The rest of the room had support and maintenance tools for the weapons, that were stored in the room. We also think we found tools and kits, to fit and refit the suits to new personnel. We kept those tools together and loaded on the off roader, for the last load of stuff that we pulled out. They were in two large metal lockers, one on each side of the Nighthawk racks. We just locked and loaded both of the lockers, so nothing would get misplaced."

If she was right, and she really thought that she was. What they had found? It would mean that the whole Star League in Exile now would have exactly five complete suit fitting kits, for the light battle armor. It would take almost a full day to refit a suit of the armor so that it would fit a new person, or if the original person had a major change in weight or body shape. It was a well-known issue with the Nighthawk suits. This one part of the find alone, could cut down the time to refit the PA(L) suit units by 20% alone.

No one had found another fitting kit, in over 200 years of not just looking but hard looking for another one. Only one other site that had hidden suits, had a needed fitting kit with them. The other two kits had been made by studying the one fitting kit for a few years of very hard and focused work. They wanted to make more, but the time, money, and complexity of the equipment had kept pushing it to the backburner. They were only supporting 200 Nighthawk suits and they were not able to make more of those, yet. It had always been hoped, that one day. They might be able to start production of those high-tech suits. Maybe soon? That would change with the additional bodies, the Colonials had brought to New Circe. Then they would also have to make more of the fitting equipment to support the increasing number of suits.

"That is about all I have, right now. I can have a more complete report later, to make a more complete brief." Jess was again looking down at her noteputor to see if there was anything else, she might need to bring up at this meeting. She also looked around the room, and no one else seemed to have been that excited about her last statement. That was distressing.

Robert was wearing a poker face, but it was hard to maintain. That was an impressive hall to have collected in only a few short days. "That's okay Jess. Let's wait until we get back to the Styx. That is unless something comes up, and you need to give us a mission critical update. Now, I would give an update on a few things, before we go back to our normal jobs." This was taken, by the leadership to now show what they thought of Jess's find. All of the senior people started to give her a slow clap for about 30 seconds, before stopping.

Robert looked over at one of the Dropships Captains. "Do we have information on that computer, we pulled out of the SLDF base?"

The Captain of the White Rabbit, whose crewmen had been working on the device, looked around the table before he said anything. He really did not want to say anything, because he really did not have anything major to report. He only had a few hunches, that they were working on. He was very short of any facts. After all of the good news that Jess had just revealed, that was going to be a hard act to follow.

"Sir! My guys went through the system backwards and forwards. They did not find anything of value. They think that someone set a Wipe Date program on it. When I asked what that was? They told me. That sometimes the old SLDF would set up some of their computers, with a delay action program. If no one, with the right codes, had logged onto the system by a certain date? Then the program would activate and wipe the computer's hard drives, and then overwrite the empty space on any data storage areas with ones and zeros. It leaves the base line software alone, but any added files or programs? They are completely or as good as anyone that has been looking at with our tools, gone. Near as they can tell. The program was set to run in 600 days, because that was what it was set to when they got power back to the system. They shut it down, now that we know that it works for the most part. I ordered them to pack it back up and move it down with the rest of the materials they pulled from Jess's Toy Box."

Robert let a smile crack his face at the last, of the dropships captain's last comments. "Jess's Toy Box? I like that. Now I know how to write up my reports to higher command." Robert looked back to Jess, who had a quizzical expression on her face. "So, Jess. Are you okay with the name? It's what we will be code naming your find. It's your last chance to let me know if you have any issues with it, before it becomes official in any reports."

"Sir? Are you sure that back home will be okay with that name, and not something more covert or something?"

Jess was a little embarrassed, but at the same time. She was also very pleased, that her name might be added to the site for all future mentioning of it. Only the best finds were given names instead of the encoded locations coordinates of a find. She just gave a positive nod of her head.

Robert looked back at the White Rabbit's commander. He had not known if the other man was done when he jumped in, now it was time to find out. "Sorry about the interruption, Captain. But did the reviewing team of the computer, have any ideas about the unit that had been stationed on this planet?"

The youngest of the dropship captains was pleased. That the senior officer was showing him the respect of apologizing, for the interruption before he continued with his report. "Sir, my forensic team reported about that information just before we started this meeting. They think that sometime around 2784 or 85. A SAS unit of platoon size from the 24 SOG, left the base and did not expect to return to the area for around two years. What happened to them after that? They do not have any information, on that bit of detail. They did suggest, that the computer be turned over to the Lore Master as soon as we can. That is all we have, Sir."

"Thank you. Can you please have a formal copy of your reports ready to be turned in with our logs, when we get home? I also would like a copy of them for my notes, as soon as you can." Robert was giving the other man a level look.

Now it was Captain Copelands turn to give some information to the group. "I have a preliminary report from the local police chief. The crew or group, that was following Jess and her team, were a group of Lostech prospectors looking for the SLDF base. They think, that Jess might have found something, or that she might be able to help them find the base. The local police department do not think that they were looking at a kidnapping, or not at first. Maybe a job offer and then it might have gotten ugly, when she said no." Robert shot Jess a knowing look, before he continued.

"They were not ready to do a snatch, when they were picked up at a restaurant outside of the drop port. I told them, to let those men know. That Jess and her team were only out there camping in the open air. I wanted it passed along, that it was something a lot of spacers like doing after spending so much time in steel cans. She said that they would pass that along, both she, and I do not believe they will like the comment. So, all shore leave has been canceled. These prospectors are an odd lot, and more than a little bit crazy." This did not go over well with the group, and it would go over even less well to the rest of the crew when they found out.

Robert let them make the needed noises and let them get it out of their systems. "I want the notice posted, as soon as we have finished this meeting. I don't want someone outside the drop port, to get any ideas, about picking up a few of our people to see what they might know about a lost SLDF base. I have moved up our launch time to 12 hours, from the top of this hour."

The Commander of the mission looked around the table. "I think it's time to leave while we are ahead of the game, for this round. If anyone has an issue? Please let me know."

Each person in the room looked at the commander of the mission. They nodded that said, that they agreed that it was time to leave. They were only leaving a half a day early, so there would be few issues with the crew. The Commander knew this, and it was why he had done it. A dozen hours, or the chance to lose some of his crewmembers to kidnapping or murder? It made more sense, to him, to get moving a few hours early.

The three dropships lifted off without any issues from the local government or Traffic Control. The trip back to the jump point was normal, in every way. Since this star system did not have any support infrastructure at the jump point. The dropships did not have to make any more contact with the locals, after the ships had left the orbit of the planet. The smaller ships attached themselves to the larger jumpship as soon as they arrived. Within a few hours of the dropships arriving at the jump point. The space was empty of any metal or life in a flash of jump energy.

It was not until a few weeks later. And only because some visiting outsider had asked, that it was noticed that the four ships did not file a travel plan with Traffic Control. Nothing was noted or passed along. Because it really was not against the law, to not file a travel plan with the next destination listed. It was only for safety, in case something happened to the ship between jumps that this information was logged. Sometimes people just did not want others to know, where they were going. It was not unheard of out on the edge of human space, for that to happen. Besides the local traffic control had not asked for one. They had gotten very use to dealing with Lostech prospectors, and they were a type that like to keep everything close hold. That included any of their travel plans.

 **Notes:**

 **Banking, economy, and buying large ticket items**. I always wonder how they set up a banking system in Battletech. And how you would do something like that, on a planet without an HPG.

 **How do you keep a lostech find quiet on a planet**? Now add how to do it when one of the main draws is looking for Lostech on the planet.

 **Jess's Toy Box** : It is not like you could call it "The Cate's Hold find". That would be just a little odd. I did not want them to find anything major on the first try, but they would have more information than the average prospector. That information should have a payoff of some kind.


	19. Chapter 19 4 April 3047

Someone sent me a PM on a guest acount. That did not work so great. To answer the quistion. Working on it, and you might want to check out the "Battletech" boards. Something is just starting.

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 **Chapter 19**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **4 April 3047**

 **A short tour around space**

 **Bivouac system**

Over the next three months. The ships moved through space stopping and trading at various planets and space stations. Sometimes they would sell one of the computer systems, and sometimes they would sell one or two of the ultra-class cannons. They were spreading spots of high technology items all threw out the MC, going all the way threw to the outer edge of the FWL. They were working down the shopping list that they had been given, but Robert was also looking for other bigger ticket items that were not on the approved list.

They tried to sell the fighters, and the White Rabbit at every stop. But so far none of the planets they stopped at, had the funds to cover the price of those expensive machines. At least not on such short notices, the little convoy could spend at one location. Captain Copeland used mainly the funds from the sale of the high-tech gear to facilitate the purchases as they went. Whenever they stopped by a planet with a working HPG? He would tap more of the funds from the core account a few hours, before they would launch back to the jump point.

With the Mule class cargo ship now almost full of supplies, to the top of the cargo bays. Robert decided that it was time to make their way back to their home system. What they did not know, was that someone was tracking their movements. And they had predicted were Robert's next stop might be. Every time Robert accessed the funds, it would leave another bread crumb. It was public knowledge of how much cargo space those classes of ships had, at least down to the ton. It also was general information about what had been purchased by the little convoy. After that? It was only a math problem, and it was not a hard one at that. One of the groups tracking them were unhappy with Copeland and his people. And they were making plans to make life hard on the crews, if not kill them outright.

This star system was a low population outpost. The system did not even have a habitable planet that orbiting one of the twin stars. It was just a mining outpost set up to harvest the wealth found in the systems massive and numerous asteroid belts. The total population was housed in small or medium sized space stations, and the one massive recharging and cargo transfer station at the jump point. This massive structure was at the Zenith jump point, and it had been there for a very long time. It was thought, that it had predated the beginning of the Reunification War.

Captain Copeland was hoping, that they would be able to sell or trade one of the obsolete fighters they were still carrying for tons of strategic ores the miners should have in an abundance. Those hard to find ores could be used to augment, what was produced back on their home planet. During one of the daily meetings, Jess asked about why they were stopping here to buy those items. The planet called New Circe was hidden in a nebula, and they had access to plenty of mining sites a lot closer to home.

Robert explained, that yes. They did, but it took time to pull the ores out of the ground and then pre-process them. All before they could be used in making anything. If they could pick up a few tons of the hardest to find ores? Then that was a few tons. That would be ready to go straight to the factories, that were waiting to use them. Now that SLiE had these new engines. It was almost cheaper and safer to get them here, and then take them home. Then it was for someone in the home system to do all the work with their limited refining capabilities. Besides they were just topping off their cargo holds in the Mule, not taking on a full load of the ores.

The M/V Styx had fully deployed it's jump sail to recharge the Tramps "normal" jump engine. It had easily locked into place and was working as designed. On this trip. Robert had noticed that there were fewer jumpships listed as being down for repairs, than at any other time that he could remember. He had just brought that up with Jess before this jump. She was looking into this information.

Robert had just started negotiating with one of the deputy leaders of the system at her headquarters, over at the over one-million-ton space station. It was just another stop on the trade route, that Robert had worked out before they had started this run. As far as he could find out. This system had not been visited by a supply run, ever.

A very battered Leopard class CV activated it's massive engines and burned around the huge space station at full thrust. The bulk of the massive station was blocking the light fighter carrier from being viewed, and therefor blocked the targeting system of the Tramp Class jumpship. Once the Leopard class CV was clear of the blocking station? It was visible to the jumpship, and it also started to launch all six of the fighters that could be carried by that class of ship. They went into deep space in one massive wave of death and plasma plumes.

The bridge of the Styx was not a Warship, like one of the one's they had left behind to defend their planet from the Cylons. But the Styx was not exactly like a normal merchant ship or crew, ether. By now, most jumpships, that were still in operation. They were not like the ones, that had been in operations before the 1SW. When the strange ship came out from cover, provided by the sensor shadow offered by the massive Olympus Class station. They reacted, just like the well trained and motivated crew that they were. The crew of the Styx and the dropships, she was carrying, reacted with speed that was uncommon in the Inner Sphere.

"Sir! Scanners are picking up a targeting system! They are coming out from behind the radar shadow of the Station." The scanner operator paused for a second reviewing the changing information on their screens.

"Status change on Target 1. She is a Leopard Class carrier! We have six fighter sized target separating from the dropship at speed. Traffic Control is ordering them to wave off, but they are not responding!"

The operator's hand was pushing the General Quarters alarm, even as he was talking. This was sending all ship's crews to battle stations, to defend their ships. From first detection, to the GQ alarm? It was only eight seconds between the two events. The Styx was not the only command area picking up the bogie. The alert from the flagship, was just the icing on the cake, and proof about what the smaller craft had picked up.

Robert was still strapped into his seat on a video conference, with the space station. He flipped off the connection and started giving orders, without saying good-bye. "Communication! Signal all captains, defend themselves and keep to the proscribed range limits! We know that SLDF weapons tech has been showing up, but that does not void our orders. Hobgoblin is to launch all her fighters, and they are to focus on those other fighters. Hobgoblin and the White Rabbit are to close and engage the other dropship. They have to keep it off of the Styx, and the Lisbon Maru. They have to want to disable our ride home." Some of this information was not needed, but Robert was on a roll. Besides, this was the first attack on his command, and he was a little excited.

"Captain! The targeting system has been able to identify the fighter classes." The operator continued without waiting for permission to speak. "They are reading as all light fighter classes. We have two Centurions, two Sparrow Hawks, and two Cheetahs burning fast right towards us!"

Robert looked over to his friend and second in command, and he raised his eyebrows. "Jules! They will be wanting to get in as close as they can, as fast as they can. It's a pure interceptor type mission. This is going to be a knife fight. The longest ranged weapon they have, is going to be medium class lasers."

Both Robert and Jules were thinking that all those training missions before making this run, were the Cylon Raiders were the listed enemy. That was about to pay off, big time. Neither man has said a word, about what they were thinking. Basically, they had been friends so long? They just thought the same way, in combat. The attackers had a good plan, if they were going after the jumpship. If you were attacking a jumpship? You wanted the speed that light fighters were designed with. To get to you. They needed to get as close, as quickly as they could. Jumpships had few weapons and even fewer ships had any armor, but the Tramp class was a different animal. And a Wolverine run Tramp class? She was a way different animal, than these people were used to hunting.

A second crewmember sounded off, without turning to look at the commanding officers behind them. "The Hobgoblin and White Rabbit have separated from the collars. All weapon stations report manned and operational. The two Lightnings on ready alert, have launched. They are vectoring to be in an intercept position against the fighters."

"Sir! We have new fire control systems activating! The station is active! It looks like they are targeting the fighters." There was a space of dead air on the bridge. "The station is firing on the fighters."

The crewman paused for a few seconds. "Sir! They fired some lasers at the fighters as they passed, but they missed with every shot. I think they might have burst a few of their lasing barrels, when they fired them up. I picked up a few flashes on the hull of the station, as they fired. Looks like they were not that great at maintaining their defensive weapons. They did not even try to fire at the Leo, when it when by them."

Robert nodded his head. He knew that this station was old. "At least they tried. Make the station as a neutral on all IFF's. We will find out what they are about, later."

It was a long two minutes, as the group of SLDF in Exile watched the super-fast fighters charging ahead of the slower fighter carrier. Numbers on their screens showed several countdowns. One was the time, until the fighters were in range. The more important countdown was the one about, when the SLiE would be able to fire their weapons at the attackers.

"Sir! Hobgoblin reports all six fighters are launched and moving to blocking positions, and they will wait for them at." The crewman checked his screen, before passing the information to the officer's screens at their knees. "Point 54. The Leo is still coming behind the light fighters, strong. We are picking up unburned fuel in the exhaust of the Leopard. Its acting like it might have some unrepaired battle damage, in the engine area. I'm waiting on an image to process, to see if maybe they have some hull damage we can exploit. It might be a while before we get any useful visual data."

Robert was reviewing all the reports and some of the raw information, as it was coming into the bridge. "Let me know when you have a good image and pass along to the Hobgoblin your assessment of the dropship. Jules, this has the feel of a pirate raid to me. Keep an eye on the station. If they jump in on the leopard side? Then we see, if we can put enough holes in that hunk of junk to change their minds."

Jules looked at his commander. He was only five feet from his command chair, so he did not have to raise his voice to be heard. "Do we fast charge the engine and jump out of here? Or do we stay, and fight it out with the dropship?"

Robert looked over to his friend, and an evil grin came to his face. "We stay and fight. This is a fight that is in our favor, we have the advantage in the weight of firepower. That is unless, the station jumps in and helps these pirates. If it was a bigger attack? We would jump out, and then wait a few days. Before we came back, to pick up our chicks. I do think we need to cut the sail, just in case those faster fighters break through or go around our heavier fighters. We always have our Colonial drive, but that is not an ideal plan."

If they used the colonial jump drive, in an emergency? It was hoped that it would have the look, like a miss-jump to people who did not know about them. They would have to be "dead". None of the ships and the crews inside those ships would be able to come back to the Inner Sphere, ever. It also would make the SLDF Navy, and the leadership of their Clan, very upset with Robert and his command staff. It would not matter how many goodies, that they brought back with them. None of them would be able to leave their hidden planet again, for the rest of their lives. That was if everything worked out in Robert's favor, with his leadership.

Jules nodded and gave the order, to cut the recharging sail. Outside the over 600meter long jumpship. The kilometer-wide dark sail with its supporting lines, were disconnected from the larger ship. The term was "cut". But after the battle? The Jumpship's commander would want to recover the thing. Just a few massive connectors were undone, and the sail and the lines drifted away from the long metal can. The sail would drift away from the parent jumpships and start to collapse, making it a harder target for enemy fire.

Meanwhile out in the dark of space, that was the jump point. Gwen (Dude) Paul was strapped tightly into her 50ton Lightning aerofighter. She and her wingman had been sitting in their craft on alert status, when they had been catapulted out of the dropship Hobgoblin. It had been as soon as the red light and audio alarm of the GQ alarm had started to blast threw the dropship. They were the first defensive craft to get out of the fighter bays.

Gwen had been a very young pilot, on an earlier resupply run to the Inner Sphere. She had been good enough, to pass the test for one of those coveted positions for those multiyear missions. That last mission had been a long time ago. She had been given her handle of "Dude", on that run. The trading dropship, that she had been assigned to provide cover for, had stopped on some forgotten planet on the edge of nowhere.

Late one evening. A group of the local fighter jocks and the crew of the dropship, that she had been flying off of had some drinks in a local watering hole. When one of the locals had explained, in front of everyone. That she had a dude's first name, for her last name. From then on, her new call sign had been Dude. It had stuck all threw her long flying career. She thought her call sign most likely would be put on her gravestone, weather she wanted it or not. That was just one of the oddities of being a fighter pilot, and it did not just affect the SLiE.

She had been on the downhill slide of her career, and she had known it for years. She had tested down from the front-line units, over five years before the Colonial's had shown up. She had maintained her flight time, in second or even third line units. She would do anything, so that she could fly a few more hours, and it did not matter what craft she could get stick time in. This unwittily, had helped her later in life, with such a variety of craft under her belt. She was not only qualified but rated highly skilled in all of those different airframes. When they had offered her a position on this resupply run? She had jumped at the chance.

She knew that they would be able to take only fighters, that would blend in with the locals. She had tested at the top of the group. This meant that she had first pick from all the different aerofighters, that higher command said was going on the mission. She like the 50ton fighter, that she had picked as her primary ride. The massive auto cannon would be great in the anti-dropship attack roll. If she could get close in? It could take smaller fighters out in one hit, even if the 200mm cannon was old tech. It still had a massive bite, but you had to get someone in range of it. Now it was time to see if she was still as good on a stick, has she had been on the last trip.

The six enemy fighters were coming towards her and her wing man, at an incredible speed. The rest of the fighters were still coming up behind the pair of Lightnings. For now, it will only be her two fighters, against all six of the enemy light fighters. If they failed? She would die. There was no way, that she would be taken alive. That was something ingrained into the survivors of the Wolverines. It had been that way even before they had found those prison camps, when they first returned to the Inner Sphere.

Dude had time on the way out to her position, to study the mob coming her way. She selected the targets, that she wanted to focus on and passed the information to her wing man. She and her wing man started a pre-programed set of evasion maneuvers, with the engines facing the enemy fighters. Mainly it was to cut her forward speed, and it also put Dude where she wanted to be when the time was right. Thanks to the computer threat warbooks, and powerful systems on the military ships. She knew what those craft were packing, better than the pilots did. She still could get surprised, but it was not very likely.

The largest weapons that the group of attacking fighters had, was only medium class lasers. Just like what Dude and her wingman, had for secondary weapons on their pair of fighters. She was still waiting, when her radar systems told her that she was almost in range. Dude pulled the straps a little tighter, and she hunched down deeper into the cockpit. It was almost game time, and she could hear the blood pumping in her ears.

Gwen was looking in her cockpit. This type of flying was sometimes called "eyes in". This was opposite of how you would fight, if you were flying in an atmosphere. That was where you had to fly eyes out, or you died. That was keeping your eyes looking around the skies, trying to see if your enemy was trying to surprise you. In space? That was not a good way to fight. In space, your speeds were a lot higher and without a star or sun to cause glinting on an attacker.

This was where the radar and other electronic systems, became your best friend. Even with the HUD and the powerful radar. It was as much luck as skill sometimes, when you started a fight in the deep black. When she thought the time was right? She used the joystick in her right hand and pulled it backwards, hard. This caused her 50ton fighter to flip over, within its own length. Now the massive maul of a cannon was pointing in the general direction of the enemy attack force closing to attack their ride home.

Gwen and her wing man targeted and pulled the triggers, to fire every weapon they had at their assigned targets within seconds of each other. Then they both activated the main maneuvering thruster and flipped their ships 180 degrees again. Now they were waiting for their massive cannons to reload. Multitasking was the bread and butter of a fighter jock. It was time to pour on the fuel, while the cannons cycled, and the lasers recharged for the next round of fighting.

If you could not do at least three things at once? You failed out of pilot school and would do something easier. Something like being a tank crewman or maybe something like a mech driver. So even before her ship had completed its flip. Gwen was checking her system to check the damaged done to her fighter, by the invisible incoming laser fire. If the enemy is in range, then so are you. The attacking enemy ships also only had one chance to fire on her and her wingman, before they screamed passed the two "blocking" fighter's way too fast for human eyes to track. This type of combat was different than any other warfare, in the history of man.

Only five enemy fighters flew past the pair of Lightning's. That and one expanding ball of debris that had been a Centurion fighter only a few seconds before. The ball of gas was still moving thanks to the laws of physics, but now it was not a threat. When the two fighters had completed their flip? Each fired the massive nose cannon again, and a single pair of medium class lasers at the slightly smaller group. Her wing man rushed his shot, and only hit the last Centurion with only one of his medium lasers. That was only a 33 percent hit rate, and that was not going to get him any good marks in the post mission debrief. The single hit was in the aft section of the 30ton fighter, but it only burned a little armor plate in that location. All of that bad shooting had spiked the heat in the 50ton fighters, like they were sitting in a blast furnace.

Gwen "Dude" Paul was a better pilot, and a lot better shot with her craft. She was able to put the massive class 20 autocannon shell right up the center of the engine thrust bell of her target. She even hit with both of her lasers. All of her shots when into the aft section of the other fleeing Centurion. The combined damaged caused the second Centurion to explode, joining the other Centurion as an expanding ball of fragments and various hot gasses. It was that quick and two lives were lost, and over three million C Bills of equipment was destroyed in the cold of deep space.

Gwen did not keep engaging her main engine to pursue the other four enemy fighters. They were too fast for her heavier fighter to catch up to them, and they were now out of range of any of her weapons. Not for the first time, did she wish that they could have replaced the auto cannon with a great gauss rifle like in the 15b. It did not have the raw stopping power of the larger auto cannon per shot, but it had a lot longer range. It also had a lot lower heat generation potential per shot, than the older weapon had. One part of her brain knew that she could have gotten three or even four good high probability shots with that type of weapon. She made sure to check if the computers agreed, before she had to sit down for her post mission brief.

With this part of the battle over. Now Gwen had time to plan the next part of the battle with the battle management system in her craft. She was mentally writing up her report, while she waited. If the management system agreed? Then her wingman would be able to paint a half fighter silhouette on his craft. This was not like fighting skeet, but a kill was a kill. Gwen would be able to claim a half credit for the one fighter, and a full credit from the second Centurion. She did some quick math in her head, and then decided what the best next move might be.

The two fighters activated a set of thrusters and changed course, again. They now were going to be the first line of defense against the larger target provided by the enemy carrier, that was still burning towards them. That was what the massive cannon was designed to punch holes into after all, and it just happened. That there was one nearby, that needed that kind of attention. Besides they had just even the odds, number wise, for the other two lances.

The remaining deployed fighters of the Star League in Exile escorts did not have the time to get in an as good intercept position on the faster, but lighter fighters. The lighter fighters were able to use their higher speed to control the fight and avoid most of the weapons fire coming from the other Wolverine craft. Still only two of the enemy fighters were able to get past the heavier fighters intact, or otherwise combat capable. They might have been pirates. But that did not mean that they were not good pilots, or that they didn't know their business. Each one of them had years of combat experience, of one kind or another before today's battle.

One Cheetah and one Sparrow Hawk made it passed the SLiE heavy fighters. The two fighters were able to use the higher power to mass ratio, skill, and more than a little luck to avoid the two dropships that were following the angry heavy fighters. This delayed them, a little. Before they had started to again start to close in on the jumpship, that they had been told to make sure did not try to leave this system.

Both of the surviving attacking pilots were not happy. This was just supposed to be a show of force, to scare the jumpship into giving up to their carrier. They had done this type of job a half a dozen times, this year. All without any issues, worth worrying about. You know? Issues like not only having returning fire, but effective returning fire. Effective fire which already had cut their fighter force by two thirds, before they even had gotten to the target. That was just not right! Merchant ships and crews should just give up, and not fight. "It just was not fair," were the thoughts coming from those two surviving enemy fighters.

They were about to find out how unfair the universe can be, when they found out that their target was an armed jumpship. It was not the two pop guns, that an Invader class used to pop the odd rock that got in the way. They were about to run into a lot more weapons. Ones that were helped with a lot better fire control computers and better trained gunnery crews than any other jumpship within a thousand light years of this system.

The SLDF Cheetah had been the last to launch off of the Hobgoblin, due to an issue with the ancient catapult. Now that it was out in space, it went after the pirate Cheetah. It was trying to remove his twin from the universe. Very quickly the other fighter took him up on the challenge, to do the same to him. It was going to be an even match, to see who was removed first. The one enemy Sparrow Hawk shoved its engine to the max, and started an attack run on the huge jumpship. His radar said that he had a clear shot at the primary.

What the young pilot did not know, was that this jumpship was unlike the similarly sized Star Lord. It was armed to the teeth, and it even had an armored hull for protection. The light fighter hit the thick, well thick for what a jumpships normally carried, armor by a set of twin medium lasers. They did little more than ruin the paint job on that part of the long jumpship. Those pair of hits should have opened the jumpship's hull like an egg hit by a hammer.

The four extended ranged large lasers that returned fire, for the pair of mediums that had been fired at the jumpship. The quad gamma beams hit the small fighter and did more damage to the 20ton fighter. The small craft lost its nose all the way back to the aft firewall of the cockpit, to the incoming weapons fire in a flash of energy. Then the light fighter was out of the artificially reduced firing range, as only a closely flying debris field. These four hits killed the pilot first, and then later the engine exploded due to the overloading damage. The last had ended up destroying the light fighter totally. It was now just a bit of metal dust and the odd dinner plate sized chunk of hot, but quickly cooling metal and ceramics.

The five heavy fighters piloted by the SLDF in Exile led the attack against the enemy dropship, next. The locals on the space station were still trying to contact the dropship, but the dropship was refusing any contact from them or the Styx. There was no way this was an accident. It was all out war. The Leopard commander was going to take it, all the way to the hilt. Attacking a jumpship was something that just was not done. Now it looked like not only had he attacked a jumpship. He also had failed in his mission of attacking the jumpship. That was a double failure, and that was one more failure than he could live threw.

The space station was finally starting to flush its mobile defense force, to join the battle. Soon six heavy fighters and four Tigress class close patrol ships were in space and were closing as fast as they could to the action. They had deployed late from the massive station. They all also were slower than the attacking light fighters, and the Leopard had some good legs under her by the time they were launched out of their bays. There was no way that they would be able to arrive, before the three dropships engaged each other in combat.

The pirate Leopard should have just powered down his engines and weapons, after it had lost its strike force. But it had not. It just kept on charging towards the Styx, like a dog on a three-legged cat. The question is, who the dog was and who was the three-legged cat. The pirate Leopard was matched by Robert's Leopard, but it was not alone in the coming battle. It was supported by five of its fighters and the blockade runner's own weapons.

Gwen "Dude" made the first flyby of the enemy dropship, at some distance. Her report and the information that had been transmitted back to the Styx, showed a battle-damaged dropship. It was exactly what you would expect, on the Periphery of explored space. A combat unit on its last legs, then pushed over the edge and went pirate. Out here? There were very few people, that could stand against them. It was a lot of firepower in a small package.

If that dropship had ever touched down on a major planet, even one out here at the end of nowhere. The local port authority would have grounded it, as a hazard to navigation to other ships and a danger to the crew the hunk of junk carried. That did not mean, that it didn't have teeth. It was far from being toothless. It might have lost its long-ranged attack force made up of its fast fighters, but it still had enough weapons. That it could take out any civilian jumpship, ever made.

"Dude's" images showed that the pirate dropship had both shallow and deep craters blasted into the armored hull on all of its exposed surfaces. At this close range, even the ancient systems on the Lightning could not be spoofed, by paint or most common ECM tricks. Even the aft area, which all civilian dropship's captains tried to protect at all cost, had some damage. Damage that seemed to be affecting the engines of the almost 2,000ton ship. After her close flyby of the attacking dropship, she pushed a little closer for her next pass. This next pass was not going to be a "looksy". It was going to be a "shootsy" close encounter. She had been staying outside of her and the Leo's weapons range on the first pass.

Dude led the first attack run on the wildly maneuvering ship. The high-speed attack was mainly just meant to see what weapons were operational on the flying wreck. If she got a good solid hit on the craft on this pass? That was just gravy. The speed of the attack limited the exposure of the fighter to the counter fire coming from the enemy ship. It helped some, and the pair of fighters live to make a close pass of the pirate carrier.

This time both of the pilot scored hits with the large nose mounted auto cannon on the port side of the craft. They did not appear to do any real damage, because the dropship kept on going towards the jump point without slowing down. The attack run did generate some positive information. The pirate ship might look like a wreck, but it now showed that it indeed was armed to the teeth with functional weapons. This pass also showed that the weapons were better maintained then the local space stations had been. That was an interesting data point.

When Dude and her wing man had finished the attack run and pulled back out of range of the enemy carrier. The pair of fighters had not been hit by any of the returning fire. That might have been due to the piloting skills of the pair, or to the poor gunnery skill of the dropship's crew. They did receive a few close calls, but nothing that so much as blistered the paint on the two fighters. While they were checking their fighter's systems and letting the old heat sinks work down the load they had been put under during the attack.

They were joined by the rest of the convoy's heavy fighters. It was time for another high-speed attack run on the pirate. On this attack run, they were not as lucky in avoiding the enemy fire. The Vulcan took a PPC hit to the heavily armored left wing. Gwen's craft took some Long-ranged missile hits across both wings and the nose of her craft, but the armor protected her from any real threat. In return? The carrier was peppered with SRM, medium and heavy cannon shots, as well as a few laser hits. What was the key to winning this phase of the battle? It was heat management and putting in as many papercuts as the fighters could into the larger ship.

Now the five fighters were behind the large ship, and the distance was growing very quickly. A quick flip, and they were pointing there nose back toward the enemy ship. They all went to maximum thrust, as soon as they were lined back up on the target. This caused all of the pilots to feel the heat, down to their bones. They all were closed to the red line, but soon the heat sinks were bleeding the excess heat off that had mainly been generated by the weapons. The heat from the weapons was bleeding out now, that the weapons were not being fired anymore to add to the heat load the craft were working with. The max thrust setting on the engines was generating a lot of heat, but the birds were made to handle something like that.

It did not take them long to come to a stop in space, and for then to start the long stern chase to retarget the enemy dropship. Soon they were closing the range for an attack on the exposed engines of the larger vessel. While they were still out of range of the dropship. Dude had a complete tech readout of the design specs on this class of dropship to review, and then she could compare it with what her systems had been able to collect.

The Vulcan with its pair of far shooting class 10 autocannons, the super heavy Stuka's large box LRM's launcher and its four Large Lasers, and the Ironsides packing paired PPCs. These three craft were the first shooters of the attacking fighters on the wildly evading craft. The lighter and shorter ranged Lightnings were not going to play a part. One of the fighters would close to long range, and then fire their longest ranged weapons at the fighter carrier. Then they were to fall back to vent the heat generated by firing all of those weapons, as the dropship opened the range and pulled away again. Then the next craft would enter range of its weapons and fire their heavy weapons. They would keep rotating the fire point, as long as the dropship kept heading towards the jumpship.

The Leopard CV was built with only one large laser class weapon and a few medium class weapons to cover the engines, and the whole aft area of the dropships. Dude and her group were taking advantage of this knowledge, to target the enemy vessel. From there current attack location. They would only be facing one large laser weapon, that could return fire at this range. The Lightnings had more fire power, but they would have to get very close to use it effectively. They needed to try to make the pirate Leo react to them and keep the jumpship safe. The plan on how to do that? it was to keep hitting the now empty carrier and make its Captain lose his focus on attacking the Styx.

The five fighters were not able to hit, with every weapon. That was due to the range they were choosing to fire from. And the target was doing whatever it could, so that the attacking craft would miss with those weapons shots. The Vulcan was the first fighter to score a telling hit on the larger craft. That was when the large laser turret was blown off the dropship. The large turret, with the laser weapon still attach. All went flying off into space as the larger part of the ship was still under acceleration, and the turret…..was not. The five craft did not transmit a word at seeing the weapon come off. They were five sharks, and blood was just thrown into the water.

The five attacking craft went blazing past the weapons turret, and Gwen was even able to get some images of the hunk of junk go flashing by. The Vulcan pilot would swear later that it almost clipped his cockpit, when the weapons went streaking past. Up until this time? The enemy dropship captain had been content on maneuvering, and letting the weapons take care of the Nits attacking behind him. With the aft area of the dropships only longer ranged weapon out of the equation? The nits had also proven that they had teeth, and they knew how to use them. It just showed that the Commander of this craft was not that skilled in fighting a near peer threat.

Now the five fighters could press in closer to the dropship, before firing their weapons. Gwen was the first person, that saw the thrusters on and near the nose of the dropship start to fire. She was just able to warn the other fighters, that the ship was about to flip. Maybe it was to bring its heavy nose guns and wing weapons into play against them.

By the time that the nose was facing towards Gwen, and her compatriots. They had moved out of range of those weapons. The fighters were just nimbler, and with that little warning Dude had given them? That was enough for the group, to avoid getting killed by a sudden appearance of many powerful and long ranged weapons. Mostly it was a case of thrust management for the smaller fighters to pull out of range of the long-ranged weapons.

With the nose of the dropship pointing at the fighters. It was not adding speed for the attack run on the Styx. This gave more time for the White Rabbit and the Hobgoblin to close on the enemy dropship. This let them start the engagement farther from the more fragile jumpship. That move, was what Gwen had been trying to get the Leo to do from the first attack. The attacking commander was now reacting, instead of Acting. Now all he needed to do was show some smarts, and totally break off the attack on the jumpship.

After a few pointless volleys of weapons fire from the nose mounted weapons bays, at the distant and wildly evading fighter sized targets. The enemy dropship fired its nose thruster again, and this time when it stopped. It was not aimed at the Tramp Class jumpship, but at an empty point in space that made it clear that it was not going to be targeting the long vessel.

It was just outside of the "normal" jump point area, but it was still safe from the gravity effects of the local star. If someone knew what they were doing, it would be safe for a jumpship to use. It was still close enough to the recharge station to be "safe" to use. When the dropship was still in flipping motion. It fired its massive rear mounted engines, and they went into overthrust mode straight from the idle setting. She was putting her crew under almost three g's of loading from 0g, in just a few heartbeats.

The Stuka driver was quick off the mark and was closest to the enemy dropship. He was able to throttle up and lined up for a long-ranged snapshot. It was on the weakened aft of the dropship, that filled his targeting reticle. It was the broad side of a barn target. The Stuka fired the huge 20 tube long ranged missile battery, and all four of its big bore lasers in one big Alfa strike.

This action put the 100ton fighter in a severe heat issue, as soon as the weapons cycled after firing. This quickly overloaded the heat management system and caused the fighter to auto shut down its Fusion engine in a blink of an eye. At least until it could vent the massive amount of heat caused by all of that weapons fire, and the over thrusting of the engine. If it had not shut down? There was a good chance that the attacking fighter might have an ammunition explosion or an engine breach of some kind. Both would be listed as a not a good thing, to happen for the pilot.

Three of the large lasers hit the target, as well as over half of the long-range missiles. The weapons fire was impacting along both of the left and right wings, as well as the already damaged aft section of the fighter carrier. To the people in the targeted dropship. It felt like someone had hit the outside of the Leopard with a series of hammer blows, some stronger or larger than others. This was not the first combat mission for most of the crew, but it still was distressing to the members of the carrier to be hit so hard. Then things sounded different, and not in a good way.

The dropship gave a visible shutter, after all of the damage the Stuka had done to it. It was clear, to the whole universe that the dropship was in trouble. Then a massive explosion wracked the dropship. There was a massive infer-red energy spike that had started at about the midship line. The little dropship split into two parts like it had been pulled apart by the hands of the gods. The aft part was made up of the high tail stabilizer, what was left of the engines, and part of each of the aft most two fighter launch bays on the ship.

The forward section of the dropship was blasted off and at an angle, away from the two approaching dropships that had launched from the Styx. Both parts of the once high-tech dropship, now were adrift in space with the last bit of thrust provided by the explosions sending them on at least a dozen different course headings. Both of the large parts were still going out into interstellar space, at a very impressive turn of speed relative to the nearby space station.

The Hobgoblin increased its thrust to the maximum, that the little for a dropship could safely maintain. The Captain of the fighter carrying dropship, intended to destroy whatever was left of the enemy dropship. That was how SLiE handled attacks from pirates in the past, and that was how he was going to handle them now. It was something ingrained into the Wolverine's DNA. There would be no attempt to board the wreck of the dropship. High Command had never thought to bring along marines, on this smaller mission. The Captain of the carrier would use the ship mounted heavy energy weapons, to take care of any hazards to navigation. At least that was the plan of the command crew of that ship, anyway.

The Olympus class space station seeing that the pirate dropship and fighters had been neutralized, for the moment, had started blasting the radio frequencies with energy. They were ordering the Hobgoblin and her fighters, to stand down and leave the area of conflict. They were claiming jurisdiction over the whole area, that had been in conflict today. They did not resort to open military threats, but they were pulling legal attacks.

Two Mark VII landing boats now moved out from the cover provided by the patrol craft. The mix mass of small crafts was burning as hard as they could towards the area of battle. The locals had the manpower, and more importantly. They were trained in this type of capture in the deep of space. That was something that this crew, from outside of human controlled space, had also not brought on this mission. The Hobgoblin's Captain was prepared to ignore the orders from the space station, but after the orders are repeated from Captain Copeland. He changes his mind. He did not have much choice in the matter.

The fighter carrier flipped over and decelerated, to come to rest near the battle area. It would be keeping an eye on everything that was happening. Only after coming to a stop, did it then start to retrieve three of the group of fighters it had launched at the start of the battle. It was leaving the two Lightning's in space, to return to the jump point at a more leisurely speed. They would provide the combat cover to the Styx. That is while the three heavier craft could be refueled, rearm, and any repairs that needed to be done. At least one of the heavy fighters would be ready when the local's showed up. The longer it took the locals to decide to do something dumb. The more prepared the remaining heavy fighters would be.

The little Cheetah was already near the jumpship, after destroying the same type of fighter flown by the pirates. It was due to the superior skills of the Star League pilot. Later the recorded data would be used to show younger kits. That the skills they were learning could be used to beat anyone in an equal fight. It had been the sole protector for the Styx and the Maru, until the twin 50ton fighters could cover the distance back to the jumpship.

The Hobgoblin would stand on station watching the recovery effort, on what was left of the pirate dropship until it was recalled by the flagship. After the locals had boarded what was left of the dropship. She and her remaining fighters were directed to return to a closer position near the Styx and her important cargo.

After the Hobgoblin completed the engine burn, it now came to a rest only 20 KMs from the long jumpship. It started to recover the three fighters waiting on her and replaced them with the three heavier fighters. The heavy fighters had completed another refitting cycle, while the dropship returned to her only way home. Besides watching over the Styx. The CAP also covered the two SLiE small craft as they recovered and attached the jump sail back onto the jumpship.

In a few hours, but less than four, the pair of Lightning's would replace the three other fighters as the CAP. The Stuka and Cheetah would be the replacements on the next shift for the Lightnings. Two fighters would be on CAP, at all times. Two other fighters would be on alert, with pilots sleeping in the cockpits. Every weapon on the four larger ships, would be manned at all times. It would stay that way, until they left this system. This was just in case this was only the opening move of a larger attack, that might be coming at them. The bad part? It was that this attack, was just another week on the edge of the Inner Sphere.

That was how the rest of the day went. A few hours before the start of the night shift, a small jumpship of the Scout class appeared in the system. This sent all the ships' crews running to battle stations. It did not matter whether they were stationed or lived in the system, or they were just visiting. The whole star system was on alert, after the Leo's little surprise attack on the visiting jumpship. No one wanted to be the next victim, of another surprise attack. The actions of the space station were noted, on the bridges of all the craft connected to the armed jumpship. Robert had to stay in this system for another hundred hours, unless he wanted to "Hot Charge" his drive. At this point he still was not willing to do that.

The small jumpship did not launch a dropship but waited for some time before contacting the recharge station. They were seeing if there were any dropships, that might need transport out of this twin star system. They said that they were running empty and heading for a charter in FWL controlled space. They could use the additional money, generated by picking up any handy hitchhiker. That was strange for a commercial operation, but not unheard of in this part of space. It was very unheard of for this to happen with a small Scout class ship.

The Scout class jumpship going by the name of Happy Times II, deployed its jump sail and waited for a potential customer to contact them. Robert did not buy the story for one second, that they just happened to come in this system empty. After only a few hours of being attacked by a lone dropship, that was without a ride out of the system. It just was too good to be true. Robert was working on, that if something was too good to be true? Then it probably was.

Robert asked twice, over the next few hours, to be allowed to make a flyby of the new jumpship with a pair of his fighters. He wanted to check out the strange jumpship. Both times, Traffic Control had denied his request. The local station did run flybys with their own fighters and patrol craft, multiple times on the smallest class of jumpship. They reported back, in a coded frequency, that the jumpship did not have a dropship on its one collar. It was also reported, that it looked to be in very good repair minus some minor body work or paint. Robert made a bet with himself, that they had a few platoons of space trained troopers on board that small jumpship.

Robert was reading the latest intercepts between the local fighter patrol, and the massive space station. The HPG team was just as good picking up the local communications and breaking their codes. They were talking about the Scout, not knowing that Robert, and his crew, were picking it up almost as fast as they were sending the coded transmissions. He looked over to Jules, his XO and second in command of the convoy and resupply mission.

"Jules, what is the output of our radar system at maximum output?"

Jules had to turn to look at his commander, and he gave him an odd look. "Sir? I have no idea. But I do know, that it's strong enough. That if you are standing near it at full gain? Your kids will have three arms. It won't matter if you had a radiation suit on, or not. Why?"

Robert looked at his longtime friend and gave him the evilest grin, that Jules had ever seen on his friend's face. "Jules, warm up all the systems. I am not falling for this thinly veiled lie. I want them to know, that we are not buying it. I want you to see, if you can blister their paint with our radiation output. When you're ready? Just do it, don't wait from me to order it. I want to send a powerful message, to everyone."

Now it was Jules that had a grin like a shark and nodded to his boss. "Can do, boss. It will take a few hours to make sure we can put the power out, without breaking something important. One way or another, we will get a hull shot of them."

Robert was off shift, when it happened. It was almost six hours after Robert had given his direction, when it was executed. Jules was not planning on using just the Styx's systems, after he started working on his orders. He had gotten with all of the dropship's captains and engineers. Not surprising. Each of the dropship's captains wanted to be in on this game. It took a lot of work to get all of the different systems ready. But when they "flipped the switch"? The Styx, all three dropships, and all six of the fighters pointed there targeting and range finding systems at one spot in space. Within one second? All of their souped-up systems were turned up to 11.

The energy output on target was not enough to boil or even blister the paint. Not at the distance, that separated all the craft. It was enough to get everyone's attention and set off alarms all over the whole star system. When the local Traffic Control had called. Well screaming, is a better description, of their attempt to contact. Jules had told them it was simply a systems test; in case any trouble might show up in this system.

That statement had caused the person on the radio to calm down. A new voice from the station asked, that the next time they felt like doing that again. A little warning would be nice. Jules was non-committal in his reply to the locals, on that last request. They had not liked it, not one bit, but it was not like they had been attacked in this system before or anything. The betting boards on the jumpship went nuts after the radar tests.

Not everything was focused on the small jumpship. Copeland and his crews also were able to watch and evaluate how this star system recovered the wrecks of the fighters, and the dropship of the late pirate attack force. After the closest Tigress class patrol craft had inspected both parts of the wrecked Leopard. The two Mark VII Landing crafts made contact with the hull. It did not take long for them to put aboard their space suited armed troops on the hulk.

One of the Landing Boats was on each of the two largest parts of the wrecked dropship. With this part of the mission complete. The four heavily armed small craft fired their engines, and they went to track down, and check out the remains of the six pirate fighter craft. The patrol craft were able to attach tow lines to the three salvageable light fighters. The underpowered patrol craft then started the slow process of towing the wrecked small fighters back to the space station and her repair bays. That would be where they could see, what they could do with the wrecks.

The fourth Tigress class ship made its way back, to what was left of the leopard class carrier. It was to see. If it could help start the recovery of the larger part of what was left of the Leo, just like they were doing with the three wrecked fighters. At least that was what Robert and his crews were able to get from their eavesdropping.

The locals had only found two of the aerofighter pilots alive. One of them was not expected to live, long enough to make it back to the main medical support facility on the recharging station. They also found out that the aft section, of what was left of the fighter carrier, only had one person left alive on it. The forward part of the ship had fared better, and the locals had found a whole six people alive on that part. Two of them were hurt so bad. That they might not live to see another twenty-four hours, even with the medical facilities on the station.

The Styx and all of the dropships were recording everything they could, and even the techs from the HPG system were helping on their off shifts. Robert wanted to catch as much information, as they could. You never knew, what they might find out. Some of it could turn out to be useful information, when they made it back to New Circe.

It was not every day. That you got to see and record, how another group recovered a battlefield in deep space. A Normal jump point location? That was about as deep space, as any group would get since the jump ship had become the only way to travel between the stars. As far as Robert knew. Only the Colonial's had more experience in recovering of ships in very deep space, than anyone else in all of explored space.

While the Aft section of the Leopard was still coasting out into deeper space. One of the MK VIIs had set up a trapeze towing system, and it had started to work on slowing the wrecked engine section. The second MK VII and the only remaining Patrol Craft attached a similar system, to the larger forward section of the dropship. It was with a lot of interest Robert took notes, because he had never seen a system like this before in his life. The SLiE would have just used a dedicated Tug class Dropship to do this type of work. That was expensive, and there were few tugs still active within the SLDF navy. He was thinking that this technique might be useful back home.

It was a tug of war between the ant or two ants, and a dead elephant. Slowly they started moving the massive parts of the wrecks back towards the station, and the repair bays that the Olympus class station was known to have. The little ships would run their ship's engines past there maximum rating, till they started to overheat. Then the small craft would shut down, until their engines cooled back down. And then they would repeat the process and keep doing this over and over again.

Robert and Jules had a running bet on how long it would take, until whoever was in charge of the station launched a dropship to help with the recovery. With its higher powered and stress rated engines. Something like that would speed up the process of getting the larger parts of the wrecks closer to the open repair bay, and out of the jump point hazard area. Robert had rotated off of duty, and the expected dropship still had not launched from the station.

Before he had left the bridge, and before the attention signal, he had planned had been activated. Jules had even tried to contact the commander of the station, to demand that Robert should be able to question any survivors of the attack. He had been handed off to a less senior officer and who listened, but could not, or would not grant his request.

Robert did not think, that even he could have talked directly to the station commander. That she would have granted him the permission to talk to any prisoners? Robert knew that it would not happen this soon, after capture. Robert had to go through those steps, because it was expected that someone in his place would do those things. After one more check in the box. Robert went back to his cabin, to get some much-needed sleep. He thought tomorrow was going to be a very busy day. It was that feeling in the back of his mind, and he listened to it. More importantly, he used that little voice to help plan for some future events.

In space, there is never a sunrise or sunset. When you're so far away from the center of a solar system? There is not even a very bright center star to judge what your day or night cycle might be. It is only one light that maybe is a little brighter, than the others from the point of view of those at the jump points. One hour of any shift, was the same as any other hour. It was devoid of any outside reference points. It was just clocks counting hours, minutes and seconds.

When Robert returned to the bridge of the Jumpship Styx, after spending some time in the gravity decks gym and a quick low water shower afterwards. After reviewing the notes from the outgoing officer of the deck and checking a few personal things. He was ready to start his day. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He thought something was coming. If it did not? Then he was going to be the one to drop the other shoe.

 **Notes:**

 **The battles.** Yes, they were played out at the local FLAGs. It was between two players, that did not know it was going to be written into a story. It was a right pain to write it up. I do not know if I will do that again, or not. The enemy force was randomly rolled by using the books. I had wanted a more balanced battle, but I had to keep it "real".

 **Recovering or Salvaging on a moving battlefield in very deep space**. If you think about the math to do something like this to much? It will give you a headache, or a lot of sleepless nights. Now how would a system that did not have shipyards or the right space infrastructure to take advantage of a sudden windfall.

 **Bivouac system**? It is just a system that I made up. I used the rules of system generation and it just… was. That was how I had to write it and come up with some plot points for it to make sense. I will say that it was enjoyable to try to come up with a why and connect some of the dots, without breaking Battletech's timeline to badly.


	20. Chapter 20 5 april 3047

**Chapter 20**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **5 April 3047**

 **Bivouac system day 2**

Robert was looking around the command deck. He had no idea who might have the answer to his first question of the day. He was a little early for his posted shift. These people had been on shift for almost seven hours already. " _Well, I better just ask."_ Robert thought to himself before he opened his mouth.

"Do we have any recordings of what happened to the salvage operation, after I left shift last night?" He addressed the question to the whole command center.

One of the crewmembers looked up and turned around to the mission commander. It was a slow movement in zero gravity. "Sir! We have a complete history of it. It is on the ship's command server. Just click the "Updates" folder on your console, and it could replay the whole take."

The look she was giving the captain, was odd. She knew that her Captain knew about, how to review mundane data. If it was important? They would have told him, when he came on the bridge. She was wondering what was going on, and if she had done something wrong.

Robert nodded to the younger woman and pulled his screen up from the arm rest. He found the folder he wanted close to the top of the file tree and started the playback. He was able to watch the events at between two- and three-times normal speed, and sometimes. He would bump it to a faster play back to see events unfold even quicker. As it played, he realized that he had lost the bet with Jules. They had not sent a dropship to help move the dropship wrecks. And as the three 150ton small craft towing the fighters closed the distance to the massive station. One of the great repair bays opened for them.

Robert watched the wrecked fighters move passed the massive door, that showed a Blue Number 3 on it. It was a door that was a hundred meters tall and 20 meters wide. That was very odd. Bay 3 was the closest to the central hub of the station, and was always the first bay to be filled, with high value haulers. It made it easier on the crew of those ships, to use the full range of facilities on the station. If Bay 3 was empty? Then it was a good bet that the other bays were empty as well. This was a major indication, that this system might be on its last legs of viability.

All three light fighters were towed into the same massive bay, but the small patrol craft did not stay long hidden from view. They possibly only stayed long enough to refuel, change crew, and return back to the deep black. Robert watched an hour at fast forward speed, as the first two MK VIIs and the one Patrol craft released their tow lines to the three patrol ships returning from the station. The now released small ships moved away, and used what Robert knew was the most economical speed for the MK VII landing boats.

 _"They must have been very low on fuel, after the way they were running their engines_ ," thought Robert. It was an odd way to do business, it worked. But it was just very odd. He would have tried something different, if he had been in command over there.

The three small craft now released from the dropship parts, made it back to the station very quickly. They also entered Bay 3, just like the other three ships had. They emerged from the same bay, 20 minutes later. That was what Robert thought, was about the time needed to refuel ships of that class, do some minor systems checks, and preflight with a fresh set of crews. That was, if you did not worry about little things, like safety. The three patrol ships were rejoined by the refreshed towing ships and attached more lines to the two-part wreck.

One of the Landing craft joined the Patrol craft towing what was left of the aft section. The other two ships attached themselves to the larger forward section. With the increase of thrust available to the operation. The two-part wreck was towed into Bay 3 a little over two hours, after the other ships were added to the parade. Bay 3 must have looked more like a junk yard, than a repair docking bay for a larger cargo dropship.

As the Bay closed and the repair facility no doubt re-pressurized, Robert stopped the playback of the video data. When he looked up? He started giving orders. "Contact the Boat Bay Chief. I want one of the Landing boats prepared for launch. I also want Jules, Jess, and two of our larger crewmembers armed and as heavily armored as they can. I want to be ready to launch, in two hours. Also contact the Captain of the Hobgoblin. I will need two fighters that are not the CAP, to act as my escort. I want them to cover us, while we go to the recharge station."

Robert was on a roll, and hands were flying across screens. "While we are gone? I want the ships set for an emergency jump, but I also want all weapons manned and all fighters deployed. Do not contact the station, to let them know we are going to come over. I want their first warning, to be when we start heading their way!"

Robert had an evil grin on his face. This was a dangerous game, but he was good at it. He would make sure that they did not do a "fast" burn. " _It was time to let the locals know, what it felt like when it happened to them. Well at least a little bit of what it felt like any way,_ " thought Robert.

In the dark of space. The Styx was the center of a formation of concentric rings. The ring closest to her was occupied by the dropships White Rabbit and Hobgoblin. The second and last ring was patrolled by two fighters that made up the combat patrol. Currently on shift. The CAP job belonged to the light fighter Cheetah for quick reaction, and the old Vulcan for heavy hitting at range. It was an odd team, but each pilot needed to pull a shift. Combat in this system had proven that both of these types of craft had been very useful.

That was what the Recharge station was tracking. Then in a blink of an eye, the count of contacts almost doubled at the jump point. It was when one contact left the jumpship and two more left the Fighter carrier half a minute later. At first, the system's operations department thought that it might just be an early shift change of the CAP. You know something to break any pattern, to make it harder for someone to plan an attack on them. One that a bad guy might have picked up on, just like the station had already done. It was a good SOP and one that the station's crew had seen many times before from other visitors.

Then he notices that all three new targets, were heading right for his home. The huge nonmoving and under gunned recharging station. The operator almost hit the alert button, then changed his mind after a second thought. If the three new contacts had been followed by the blockade runner or that Leo class Carrier? Then he would have hit the "Big Red" button. He hit another button instead, but that one "only" alerted his boss that something was up. Then he hit a more common button on his consol.

"Craft approaching Bivouac station. Please state your business and send a flight plan, please." After all the excitement with these guys, like being attacked by that other dropship yesterday. He did not really want to be the one to risk upsetting them any farther, if he didn't have to. They had taken out that pirate dropship with both speed and skill. Both items that were in very short supply on this station, for a few decades now. Those things had been missing along with good weapons. The ones that they had were also not the best, even out here on the edge of nowhere. This all equates, to the Traffic Control department being nice to them.

Over the old speaker came a voice, that identified that it was someone called Styx Actual and escort. And they were coming over because they wanted to see the station commander. They did not seem like they were going to take no for an answer or accept someone else, not this time. He gave them clearance to dock. Then he notified his superior, that they had a VIP coming over. And they were in transit with a heavy CAP. He told his boss who they wanted to see, and that they did not seem very happy right now. For the first time, in a long time. The operator was thankful he was not higher ranked. This was one issue; he did not want to have to deal with. He liked breathing a bit too much, to want to get caught in this crossfire.

When his shift supervisor for Traffic Control reviewed the lower level operator's action? He kicked the problem up to the station commander's office. He did attach the information with a note, that said he was going to meet this group and where. The Boss might not be there, but he had to be there. He left the dingy room and made his way to the assigned docking bay that Traffic Control had given the approaching group. He was making a good turn of speed as he pulled himself down half lit corridors. This part of the station was in Zero G.

When he had made his way down the worn hallways and made the last turn. He did not run into a flunky from the commander's office, but the head woman herself. They made some small talk, as they now waited for the airlock to cycle from the bay to the main living space. Whatever he had been expecting? He did not get it, when the hatch was pulled open.

Five people floated through the hatch. All of them were wearing heavy body armor, and side arms were on the hips of the front three people, two men and one woman. What was, so distracting? That was the two large escorts, pulling up the rear. It was not that they were armed or even armored. That was not uncommon in this part of space. No, it was that they looked more like small mountains, than dropships crewmembers.

The female escort of the two was almost two meters tall and had thicker arms, than any of the legs on marines they had on board this station. She looked like she could bend airlock hatches in half, and then chew them up to make nails out of the now damaged metal. The head of Traffic Control did not know if he should be scared, or in love. Before he could make a fool out of himself? He caught a slight head shake from his boss. That told him to go back to his job and leave the area for the boss to do her job. He was fine with that and nodded back to his boss, before turning and leaving the area. He did not even look over his shoulder, as he went back to his mundane job.

Luzena Wilson watched as the young idiot male went back to the job, he was being paid to do and not getting underfoot. She had enough to worry about, and now she also had a massive Stuka class fighter orbiting her station, and it was working with a lostech Ironsides. One that this group had somehow found and gotten back into working order was keeping it company. When she turned back around. She was looking at each of the people entering her domain, one at a time. She had no idea who was in charge of this group. She automatically discounted the pair of walking mountains, at the rear of the group. That just left two men and one woman, normally the woman would be in charge since this was the MC. But her gut told her, that they were not from anywhere in the MC. This helped, somewhat in narrowing the field. If they were from the Combine? She would have looked at the oldest man in the room. That would have been the male walking mountain.

One part of her mind noted, that they all were wearing protective body armor. It looked like it should be able to stop most medium to heavy caliber weapons fire. Not that they should need it here on the station. But after the surprise attack that they had just been subject to? She thought it was a prudent move, on their part. Finally, she gave up trying to figure out who was the boss. It was wasting her time. She did not like wasting time, not one second, if she could help it. She was still trying to work out some of the questions these people were causing her and her staff, since they had jumped into her system. She had been looking forward to having more traffic. Now it was a case of be careful what you wish for…. You may get it.

Luzena shrugged her shoulders and gave up her mental guessing game. She lifted her chin up and addressed the group. "Okay? So, who is Captain Copeland?" The younger looking of the two men stepped forward with a confidence, that one was expected to have. If they wanted to run an interstellar company, that carried your name painted on a 660meter long jumpship? You had to be able to project the right "air".

Robert looked at the woman across from him. She was wearing a standard ship's suit without any name tapes or rank tabs. Just like the group Robert had brought on to the station with him. "That would be me. You must be Manager Wilson."

Robert said as he stretched out his arm and opened his hand, in a friendly gesture. In Zero gravity. You did not exactly give strong and vigorous handshakes to people. They might bounce off the hard floor or the equally hard ceiling. All would be socially bad, and possibly physically dangerous to both parties involved.

The woman returned the gesture. "I guess you want to interview the survivors. I did have one of my law enforcement officers talked with all of them. At least the ones, that could talk. This is my system, Captain. You are only a guest here. If you would have only waited a few more days? I would have sent a copy of all of our findings, to you." She put a bit of Bitch into her tone, to let them know. That she was not happy, to see some strangers testing her leadership of this system.

Robert was watching the woman trying to get a read on her body language, and her use of certain words. He was looking forward to seeing how she was going to react, to what he had planned. "That is one of the things that I thought we needed to talk about, face to face. It is not, however, the main reason I thought I needed to come over here to see you. I had tried to arrange a video conference with you. But you seemed to have been working on other issues, and your staff could not set up a time for that conference."

She heard the words, but she did not put much weight to his words. He was only a male, after all. There was a reason that all of the leaders and power players that were in the Magistracy of Canopus, were female. "Why don't we look at what is left of the Pirates equipment? Then, we can have a formal meeting in my office."

She turned and floated down the hallway, without another word. The group followed her down the metal corridor. That looked as old as it was, if not older. She had not even asked them to remove any weapons, and to leave them inside their way home. It was still in equally rundown small craft bay. That would have been the normal way to handle it, but these were not normal times. They had not been "normal times" out here for a very long time.

The group made their way through the massive metal beast of a space station. They passed people and little shops as they now walked. They even passed whole family groups, living in the beast. Just off the main access to the shopping and living quarters, was the inside hatch to Bay 3. The bay was listed as Facility One on the wall maps, and the directional signs posted along the way. It had been a long time since Robert had been this deep into one of these massive structures. The Star League in Exile did not have the resources to build one of these things. It had the need, but it had not had a need that would justify the massive amount of the diverse resources needed to make one.

They entered the massive bay in one large group, still led by the local leader. It was designed as a repair facility, which could hold ships up to 150,000 tons in a short sleeve work environment. That type of an environment had helped with the repairs of those visiting ships. This station was run down, but the big clue that things were not going well for the locals was what was in this bay.

Any of the repair bays on Olympus class stations were always in high demand. Most of them had waiting time listed in multiple months or even years, in some systems for their use. Whole shipping schedules were adjusted, so that a ship could make use of even the smallest of these bays. So, when Robert saw the prime repair bay? Robert was already trying to figure the angles on what was going on. He did not like what he was coming up with.

The massive hatch was designed to help with the transfer of large parts into the bay. It was overkill and not a small safety risk, to open it for only six people to enter the large repair bay. It did have the advantage of being able to show off the massive bay, in one big shot of wonder. The SLiE only had unpressurized yards to maintain their orbital fleet. The 150,000ton capacity bay swallowed up the 2,000 tons of wreckage like a pea in a trash dumpster. All of that pirate wreckage was suspended by cranes, chains, gantries, all in a warm, bright, but zero g environment.

What was left of the three pirate fighters and the two parts of the dropship, where like little pieces of food caught by a huge spider web inside the bay. There were five or six people floating around the forward part of the dropship, that appeared to be doing something on that part of the wreck. It was a mystery as to what they were doing, from the lower level near the huge main bay door. This was not the first time most of the visitors had seen something like this, but on a lot larger scale. Then again. It was a rare site, even for them.

Wilson was waiting for the strangers to say something, but they did not say a word. She also thought that they did not look that overly impressed, with the view of the Pressurized repair facility. She pointed up to one of the crewmembers floating near the bridge section of the dropship. That was very distressing. She had wanted to overall her visitors, with her command.

"The easiest way to get access to the bridge is threw one of the armored glass screens. My people have been trying to dump the computers. But so far, they have not had any luck. They don't know if it is due to the battle damage. Or if the crew did something to them, before they died, when the fuel and ammunition storage areas had a bad reaction to the damage your fighters did to it."

Robert was looking around and trying to seem impressed with the view. But compared to what New Circe had? This place was on its last legs and would maybe be second rate even in this part of the Inner Sphere. Or maybe even as low as a fourth-rate facility for the SLiE or clans. "I have a few people on my ships, that are very good with computers. I could send them over, if the price is right?"

Robert could see that the manager's back straightens up some. She had not liked the way he had delivered that offer. Robert decided to soften his tone, just a little. "Just send us a message, if you need them. I only have four requirements, if you do ask for them. One you pick them up and drop them back off. So, it's only your fuel being used in the traveling. Two? It is, that you're personally responsible for their safety. If anything happens to them? I will have issues. And I think you know, how my company handles…..issues."

Robert pointed to the fighter carrying dropship, that was in two parts above their heads. It was a silent way to say that he had no problem going violent. He kept talking in a level tone and watched the woman. "Third? It is that I want a copy of any information that your able to find on those computers. The Fourth? It is that you will pay them directly for their time and skills."

Robert was looking and wanted to see, how she recovered to his amended offer. He really wanted to see whatever information that they might find lurking in those computers. He hoped, that somehow it would provide him a few leads on who had been behind this attack. If he could find out, if this was a part of a larger operation? Then he could plan better. If it was a small enough group? He just might stop by, and let his fighters get some live fire range time.

"Thank you, Captain. That is a very generous offer of you. I will keep it in mind." The manager was in deep thought as she spoke.

The requirement of someone from the Station picking them up, would lessen the chance of a retaliatory attack being smuggled in from their ships. With what happened over the last few days? That was not an unlikely possibility to worry about. This part of space had been dangerous, everyone knew that. But her people had not had to deal with an attack in almost a decade.

"Why don't we go to my office for a more private conversation, Captain?" She was schooling her face and body language. Robert was now getting nothing from her.

Robert nodded, and the group did a zero g turn and pulled themselves along a wall mounted handrail. Very quickly they had exited the massive repair bay. They made their way down to the 150m gravity deck and into an office, that was waiting for them. Now under normal weight. They were walking on well-worn carpet, until they entered a door marked "Manager's Office". The female leader of the system walked to the desk. They saw that it had only enough seats available for only Jess, Jules and Robert.

The remaining two members of his crew were going to be acting as door guards and playing the part of intimidators. They were very good at this job, since they both had tested down from the infantry skills a decade and a half ago. They had not failed out, because they were not big enough for the job. It was just that they were not stealthily enough, when compared to the rest of the people trying out for that job. In this current job, stealth was not required. They just needed to be scary, and this they could do in spades. This was a little different than the weapons turret position on the jumpship, that they had been assigned to do.

"Okay, Captain Copeland. You asked, or I should say forced, for this meeting. So, what is it you and your people want?" Asked the woman setting behind her clean metal desk. She was target locked on Captain Copeland. She had already worked out. That she had only two or three cards to play, in today's little contest. They were very good cards, but still. She did not have that many to play, and she knew that if this man was smart. He might be able to outmaneuver her. She was hoping and in truth praying. That this man was not that smart or that cutthroat, to push her that way.

Robert smiled a little, but he did not want to give anything away. " _Right to the point. Okay, I can do that_."

"Ms. Wilson, we want to know. Why they attacked us, and/or who sent them to attack us. Also, we are a salvage company. It even says so in the name printed on the side of my ship. We would like all of it, returned to us. They attacked us, unprovoked. We defeated them. So, what is left of their equipment, should belong to us. The crews are yours. After both of our interrogators find out, what we need to. We will take them and push them out an airlock, without a spacesuit. I consider them Pirates, and that is what we do with pirates where I come from." This was his pre-planned opening move, and it was meant to rub her the wrong way.

Luzena Wilson was taken aback, for a few seconds, by the blunt statements from the man across the desk from her. It took only a flash, before she was ready to say her part. She had all night to get most of what she wanted to say together. She had known that the visitors would want to talk to her. She knew that most mercenary units wanted and needed battlefield salvage to keep them in operations for the long term. Most of the time, it was the only way for them to get repair parts. She also knew that this was not just the case with mercenary units out this way.

"Captain Copeland. Let's get something straight. You're not a mercenary unit under contract to the MC or to me, for that matter. That means that legally. You cannot claim salvage rights of any kind in my system. The act perpetrated on you, is a criminal act. One that happened under my watch, and we will be the one's investigating it. If the surviving attackers are convicted of piracy? Then we will handle them, in accordance with the laws that were put down in this system and the relevant laws of the Magistracy government. And not how you think, they should be handled. For all we know. This attack was because you had worked with them before. Then you had a falling out. And they wanted very badly to get even with you, no matter what would happen to them in the process. It's not normal for a pirate attack to keep going, after they had lost the advantage. This group kept gunning for you after they lost all of their fighters and had taken a massive amount of damage to their dropship."

Robert about lost it, when she made the accusations that they might have been working with these pirates. Then his mind started to catch up and worked the issue. She had a very good point. About a revenge attack, and how far this group pushed before making a visible effort to break contact. Before he could say something, Jess jumped in and pulled the station's boss attention towards her.

"What a load of crap! They attacked us! It's more likely, that you are working with them. They were in this system and hiding behind your station. You did not even warn us that an unknown carrier was in this system when we arrived! You let them surprise us!" She was about to levitate out of the chair, and only stopped talking when Robert put his hand over hers. This had the effect of dumping cold water on her attitude.

Jess did not want this woman taking control of this meeting. She needed to give the other woman another target to worry about. She had been studying every bio and social report about the MC, that the Styx had been able to collect. She knew that Captain Copeland would understand her action. It was just too bad that not all of it was acting. She was upset about the accusation of them working with Pirates. If she had been back home? She would have challenged the station manager to a Trial of Grievance.

"Ms. Wilson! They were my people, that were attacked. It is going to cost us not a small amount of funds, to fix the damage and replace the ammunition we used. What would have happened, if we lost one of our crewmembers, during the attack? How would I be able to compensate the surviving family members? We need something, that we can trade later for some cash to pay for all of those things." Robert stepped back into the line of fire. He had to fight a smile down at the way Jess had jumped in to spread out the attention without needing to plan out for it.

Luzena stopped talking and was rocked back in her well-worn high back chair. " _How far should she go with this group_? _"They had been the target of the attack. They had made someone very mad at them, for some reason. That was for sure."_ She thought to herself, but she kept her face very still. She did not even move her fingers.

"Okay! All cards on the table. You're not going to get anything from those fighters, or the dropships that you might be able to sell." She put her hands up in the air to stop any interruption from the group across from her. "Before the Gran's Peanut. That was the name they gave to Traffic Control when they were dropped off on us, two weeks ago. That had been the first jumpship to stop by, in over eight months. I have been sending messages to the company headquarters on every jumpship and dropship, that has shown up for the last three years now. I have yet to receive a reply, to any of those messages. So, what does that mean for you?"

Luzena looked levelly at Robert. "We are short on some types of parts, and we hope to get them from those wrecks. If that scout jumpship makes any type of threatening move against anyone in this system? I will take it, also. It would be very helpful to me, now and in the future. I kind of hope that they do something, so I and my people can take it over. It's not a question of what you deserve or need. But what we need, to keep over 10,200 people alive and healthy that live in this system. We have two functioning Small manufacturing space stations, and what we can make on this station. That is all we have, to keep everyone alive in this whole star system.

Robert was a little stunned. They had been cut off. They were on their way to becoming another lost system. What he thought, most likely happened, was that someone high up in the company had taken over and hidden this system as their own little piggy bank. Now that person was gone, or dead. Since this was not on anyone's books? No one had known to stop by, to keep getting the profits and products that a mining system should generate.

Robert's mind jumped back to what had been said. "If you have been out of touch, for that long. How have you been able to get food and air for everyone?" Robert was working the problem. This stop had not been visited by any of the resupply runs in the past. He had only known about it due to his access to old SLDF files. He had thought that it might be a good way to get filler cargo, and not spend a lot of capital.

"We can harvest enough food to keep everyone from starving, for now. One of the local mining families had a private little experiment, that they had been working on for some time on their own. They had found an old mined out and hollow asteroid, several years ago. They did some sculpting work on the insides, and then they shifted in some comet ice. They had brought it in by the boat load, on their off time. They said that they were trying to turn it into a 1km diameter greenhouse and waterpark, for kids. After I found out about it. I was able to speed along the project and change its plan. We helped them to make a light rod. One big enough to act as a giant grow light. It will be a few more months, before it will produce anything in a measurable amount. We had a very steep learning curve to get through the test phases. Right now, all we can harvest is limited to our small hydroponics sections spread out on different habitats and gravity decks."

She gave a soft chuckle. "We won't starve, but it's pretty dull on the selection of what we have on the dinner plate for the last six months. We can do that, as long as we have to. That is until we have things sorted out back at the home office, and we are back up in running at full speed."

Robert was thinking about the Colonials and there run from the Cylons. It was centered around how they had been living on vat algae for months. He looked over at Jess who had her nose in her noteputor, she always had with her. She was digging for something, and she would not have been doing that right then. If it was not important, in some way. Robert was thinking also, and he went into multi-tasking mode. He wanted some more information.

"So, have you mined out the whole system?" He was trying to come up with a reason that they had been dumped to die on the vine, if his first idea was wrong. It also let him have a try on getting more up to date information about this system.

Luzena was now leaning forward in the chair and was looking at the group of strangers, like a hawk might look at a rabbit. "Captain Copeland? I don't' think you know the history of this system. This system had been setup by the SLDF Navy as just one more recharging station. It was expanded after the coup. It was used to help support their rebuilding efforts to retake Terra in 2769. It was to supply them with raw materials, to be traded for finished supplies and other support. We have not even worked half of the closest asteroid belts to the jump point, much less the main belt, or the belts closer to the two primary stars. At the rate were going right now. We could double or even triple our output, and still not make it to the main belt in 300 years. So, no! We are not mined out, far from it. All we need is the company to get off the stick, and ship us some parts."

Jess looked up and nodded to Robert, before talking. She had found what she was looking for, and she was now ready to leverage it. Robert gave her a nod. He trusted her not to get him in over his head, much less her head. "Jess? Do you have any input, that you want to make on this?"

Jess put on her saleswoman smile and sat straighter in her office chair. She made and kept eye contact, with the other woman. "I do Captain. Ms. Wilson, you said you have two Small Factory satellites? Why don't you set it into replicate, or go into twin mode? That would increase your manufacturing base. Then they would be better in supporting you in any repairs, or even any new building you need to undertake in this system. That is, if you have the raw material on hand to feed more of those two 2500ton class systems?"

The other woman was not sure how to take, what the other woman had said. She decided to play for time but also not lie. "I'm not sure, I understand what you mean by a Twinning mode Miss. Right now, both of them are just producing parts, on an as needed basest. They both are not running at maximum capacity, but they are in steady use threw all of their four shifts. But they cannot make everything we need to keep functioning, for long."

Jess kept her face in saleswoman mode. "Ms. Wilson, if you have a "copy" program? Or you can reset the computer code. The SLDF made Factory satellites comes with an option for twinning in their base program load. What that does, is to help you make a second facility of equal size. We had this problem on my home planet, a while ago. That is until someone found it buried in an old block of the core computer code, that came with it. If you do have the original load of software? You can manually set it to this mode."

Jess was not moving as she talked. "What it will do? Is that whenever it is not working on something. It will use that time and resources to build parts for a new factory. It even does it, in the order that it needs to be put together in. That way you don't need to have a crew, that has built one before to get them into operation. You also might want to see what is preloaded on those systems in the factories you have in operation. Some have a pretty large set of files on different things, that they can make without the current owner knowing it. That is, if you have the raw ores for them to use. If you don't? Then it's a moot point."

Luzena made a chevron shape with her hands under her chin and was thinking as fast, as she could. "I don't know very much, about how those things are set up. What if we don't have a copy of the original programing? Is there another option?" As far as she knew those two factory sats could only make parts 100tons in mass or smaller from a very limited list.

Robert jumped back into the conversation with both feet. "Well, Ma'am. If that is the case? I would suggest that the next jumpship that comes by? You tell them that you're having problems with your small factory satellite. Let them know that you're willing to pay, and then wait for someone to get you a complete copy for you. That is the sort of low mass, high pay cargo any jumpship captain would jump at with both feet. I would offer my ship, but I have no idea when I will be back this way. I'm not the type of person to say I will do something, then not do it. I have no problem putting the word out at our next few stops, just let me know if you want me to do that."

She did not let her face show it, but she was hoping that these traders might have a copy of the software that they would be willing to sell or trade for. They certainly knew a lot about them. "I will have to check this out. I would like to table that idea for, now. Maybe we can get to working out something, later between our two companies. Now, back to the original problem. The salvage rights to what is left of those pirates."

Robert looked at Jules and then to Jess, but in the end. It was his choice to make. "If you have been actively mining. How about we settle this, with two cargo containers of partially refined industrial radioactive ores. We would be even, I think, on expenses that was caused by the pirates. We can work on another trading agreement, afterwards. We have cargo space that needs filling. We can do it here or somewhere else down the line."

Luzena was thinking hard and looking at every word, he had said. He had just said. That if she did not take them up on this offer? They would not be doing any more trading, with her people. She needed time to find out about this Twinning Mode, they were talking about. She did some quick math in her head. How long had they been charging there jump drives? And then how long did they have left before the engine was fully charged and ready for use? Then she ran the numbers on what it would cost her, to give up 40 tons of ore. She was very good at her job, so it did not take long to run all of the numbers, that she could think of. With that done she came up with a plan. Coming up with a plan had taken the longest amount of time.

She shifted her weight and reached to a device on her desk, and then pushed a button. "Karin. Please contact storage and have two Type 4 shipping containers from lot 56784 sent to Small Craft Bay 6. I need this done, quickly."

Luzena released the button cutting the connection, and then looked back to Robert. "Okay Captain, you have your ore. I think we should go to your ship and inspect it, before you accept it. I would not want you to think that something unfriendly was being loaded onto your ships behind your back." She started to rise from her chair and walk to the hatch. The rest of the people in the room followed her. Behind them at the end of the column, were the two escorts from the Styx.

When they left the stability of the gravity hamster wheel deck, again. They had to pull and float back to the Landing bay. It was holding one of the two Landing craft the Styx had left New Circe with, in her small craft bays. The mixed group entered the pressurized bay without saying a word all the way from the office to the small craft bay. As they were coming in one set of access points in the small craft bay. Other people in ship suits were pushing two free floating 20ton capacity shipping containers in from another set of access doors, on the other side of the cargo bay.

Wilson and Robert checked each of the two containers as a group. Each of the containers was divided into four sections, each one could hold 5 tons of ore in each of the reinforced cells. One of the containers had been loaded with a mix load of actinium, radium, uranium and einsteinium in the lead lined shipping boxes. The other container was loaded with Technetium, Radon, Neptunium, and extremely useful Americium.

Robert let the locals load the containers into the main cargo area of the landing craft. As Luzena and Robert watched, the crew loaded and then secure the cargo in the small craft's cargo bay. It was time for Robert and the woman to have one more conversation in semi privacy.

"Ms. Wilson it was nice to do business with you. If I were you? I would be careful about that scout jumpship. They might want to pull their surviving friends out of here, before they jump. Have they asked about the attack in any way?"

Luzena had a full smile now on her face, as she floated above the scarred deck plating. "Captain! As far as anyone, but your crews, and a handful of my people know. There were no survivors, that lived for more than a few hours after the fighting was over. I would like to keep it that way. If you don't mind.?"

She had shifted the tone in her voice. This man had just surrendered salvage rights to three light aero fighters and a blasted, but still valuable dropship hulk. The working weapons they could pull off two of the fighters were worth more than the ores, that she had just traded. It was a very fair deal, in her mind. It had moved this group out of the column of being a problem and a pain in the neck. Now they were firmly moved into the business partners category. For now, that is. Things like that had a habit of quickly changing in this part of space.

Robert smiled back at the woman. "I can understand that. Now, that we have worked this out, to an equitable conclusion. I should get this back to my ships." He waved to the woman, then floated back to the small craft and boarded her for the return trip back to his ship. He turned to the woman one last time, before clearing the hatch to his ride home.

"I will have my cargo master, contact your cargo master, to see if we can do more business. Please let me know, if our computer people are needed."

The trip back was uneventful, as were the following two days. The only change had been when a formal request of some software support had come in. Jules made an arrangement for two of the crewmembers who were very good with computer systems, and two escorts who were only okay at computers to be transferred. They would be paid directly by the station staff, with Jules acting as an intermediary for the small group. This was so that they were paid a fair amount, for the services they were giving to the locals.

While the small computer team was over on the huge station. The Styx intercepted a request by the Scout. They wanted to get a quick charge, since there did not seem to be anyone who wanted a lift out of this system. The stress level was raised to an extreme level, when the Station's manager asked how they were going to pay for this not inexpensive procedure. The little jump ship said, that they wanted to trade food stuffs and MC credit chits for the recharge. They said, that they could send over their one small craft carried by the jumpship. But it would need to make two trips, to do the job. Getting a quick charge was not cheap.

That option did not go over well, with the Station manager. They countered with the locals coming to pick up the payment, in two small craft. Only one small craft could land in the small craft bay at a time and load cargo of any large size. But each of the station's craft would put two armed ships close, to the little unarmed jumpship. Robert ordered all of his ships to go on high alert, but all of the fire control systems were to remain only in standby mode. While his crews were running to battle stations. He was contacted by Ms. Wilson on laser beam.

They were able to set up a "normal" secure video conference between the two objects in space. She made a request, that if it would not be too much trouble. She would like for Robert and his ship to stay, until the Scout had jumped out of the system. Robert let her know, that he had planned to do just that, but it was kind of her to ask. He told her, over Jess's objection. That he was worried that the little jumpship would try to follow them or report to someone, were they might have gone. He did not want to give any one time, to set up another and more powerful ambush on them further down the line.

They both had a good laugh about that. She offered to reimburse him and his company for any cost this delay might cause. Robert just waved it off, and told her that if they make it back this way? When they were a little more stable, than they might work something out. A couple of days was not going to be that much of an issue for Robert's over all schedule. The transfer of food and energy went without any issues between the station and the scout. That did not mean that both the station and Copeland's ships were not on high alert the whole time.

Two days later. The maybe pirate jumpship left the system, without any more interactions between any of the ships or anything that had been around it. Before the energy wave could dissipate. A radio message was sent to the only remaining jumpship in the star system from the massive space station.

Robert had been spending a lot of time on the bridge. So much so, that he was even taking his meals there. It was not a surprise, that when the message came in. He was on the bridge to receive it in real time. He had been expecting a third jumpship to come in at any minute, full of assault dropships or carriers gunning for them.

"Sir! We are receiving a message from a Ms. Wilson. It reads as a person to person communication." The communication crewmember turned in his chair, to tell the commander of the mission of the possible issue.

"Go ahead and read it aloud, please." Robert had not even looked up at the crewmember. He was working on his own workstation. He was planning their next jump, and the jump after that one. Robert was looking at wrapping up this trip. The one remaining holdup was trying to find any leads, on the right size of dropships that they needed back home. That had proven harder than he had thought that it would be.

The crewmen could tell that the commander was not really paying attention, but it was an order. So, he did as he had been told. "Sir, she requests a dinner with you and your command staff tonight. It advises ship's casual for the dinner clothing."

Now that got Roberts attention, and he looked up from what he had been doing. "Let her know, that we would love to." He thought for a quick second. "Let her know. That we will be taking one of our Landing Craft over in six hours. Also, that is if she does not mind. We will bring the drinks for the dinner." Robert had his fill of drinking "local" made zero g moonshine.

The crewmen gave the reply, he had been told to give. A few seconds later. He then pushed the ear bud deeper into his ear. He had to have the person on the other end say everything twice, and he still did not believe what he had heard.

"Sir? I think it was Ms. Wilson on the other end of the transmission. Anyway, they said plan for a dozen people when you bring the drinks over. They also said that we could bring one of the dropships over, if that was easier for us to make the trip."

Allowing a dropship to dock with the station? That was a major change from the directive, that had been announced within minutes of the attack against the Styx. Maybe that directive was coming to its conclusion. Only small craft with their smaller crews and their limited ability to move and hide a large number of troops, had been allowed to dock with the massive station. It had been reinforced when the Scout Dropship had showed up unannounced.

Robert laughed good heartedly. "I guess, that meant that they are starting to trust some of us. Contact the White Rabbit and let them know that we will be coming over in a few minutes. I would like them to be ready to disconnect from the Styx and make our way to the Olympus. Maybe we will be able to do some trading after all."

That was the end of the communication with the station, and the crew settled back into their work. The blockade runner had more open cargo space, than any other ship under his command at the moment. Besides having a little hidden firepower might just turn out to be handy, if things went sideways at the last minute.

A few hours later the Blockade Runner named White Rabbit with Robert, Jess, and the Cargo Master aboard the ship disconnected from the long jumpship. It was only a thousand miles on a one-way trip to the station at the edge of the null gravity zone, that was the jump point. The egg-shaped ship made its way slowly towards the station, before flipping and then slowing down to a crawl as it got closer to the Olympus. This allowed the small thrusters placed around the large ship to safely fire to make it to the correct docking spot, that the local traffic control had told them to dock to.

The dinner guests were going armed with just their side arms for defense, and a mixed group of crewmembers from the dropship and jumpship were going to explore the station. They also were going armed, just in case. Three small groups of people left the ship at the same time. Only one of the groups had an escort waiting for them when the drop ship docked to the station. It was only one person, and it was not for safety reasons that she was there. She was there to make sure that the dinner guest could find the right location, for the VIP dinner scheduled for tonight. This class of space station was the largest still in general use, by the Inner Sphere. Getting lost was a very real possibility, for anyone not used to their designs.

The dinner was held on one of the many large gravity decks, so that they could eat in comfort like normal people. When Robert and his group arrived, a male steward took the bottles of wine and harder alcohol, that Copeland had offered to bring with them. They were quickly shown to another room, that was not set up for eating. It was set up for socializing, before or after dinner. It was a very rare space to have on an object, that floats in space a long way from any planet. It also showed the visitors, that great care had been given about having them come over.

Luzena Wilson turned to face the group as they entered the room. "Captain Copeland, good timing. I would like to show you and your people something."

She turned back around and pointed to the huge screen on the wall. When Robert and his group walked up to it. Luzena used one of the side controls and it zoomed in on one of the small space base factories. A large block of silvered looking metal was being floated out of its cargo bay. There was not really any way to tell how big it was, at first. That was until another Mk VII landing craft attached some towing cables to the new object. Now they could tell that it was almost the same size, as the 150ton small craft. The group was watching, but not really seeing what was going on before them. All they knew, was that it seemed very important to the system manager. They watched it for almost ten minutes, before the visitors started to shift on their feet.

"Ms. Wilson? I will say I'm at a loss what that module is going to be used for?" Jess was the one asking the question, but the whole group had been thinking the same thing. She had very good timing, and she had saved anyone from making a social error.

The most powerful person in the system turned back around, to face the group. She had a tight-lipped look, then you could see that it dawned on her. "I should have let you know beforehand. We were not sure it the local pirate would have picked up the transmissions, or not. My people were able to crack the computers, and they copied the complete software package on Module Alfa. We now have a copy, and it is stored on this station."

She was pointing to the Small class Factory on the screen. "We then reset the software on Alfa, like you suggested. We are still testing it, before we do the same thing with the other module. But right now? It seems to have worked better, than we had any right to hope for. So far, we know that we have lost all the files on how it is supposed to make parts for our Tigress class ships. So far that is all of the bad news. With the reboot? It deleted all the corrupted files, and some older administrative files. My top tech said that now we have an almost 20% increase in the computer systems speed, after rebooting. She has no idea how that will translate into increased production, but we are sure that it will be a benefit. We shifted all critical support, that we need in the systems to Module Bravo and our workshops. They are working at maximum output, and it can cover everything we need. That is unless we have something major break, again. We are using Alfa to focus on building a replacement satellite. I believe you called it a twin. We are hoping that it will be complete and working in about four to six months, or less. We found all of the files to make all of the parts, that we thought needed to be imported to keep the station going."

Robert was impressed. She must have given the orders before Robert had re-docked with his jumpship after that meeting. "So? What are your long-range plans for them?" He was pointing at Module Alfa, and the part being towed out of sight. She had admitted, that she was not fully using the capabilities that she already had at her disposal. So now what would they do with the additional output they were building?

The woman looked back at the playing images on the screen, but at first did not say anything. Did she want to let them know what she was planning? It was not treason, but how could they use that information against her and her people. They had been the ones to help her. And they had not asked for anything in return, for that help. That was the kicker for her, to tell them her long range plans. She was interrupted before she could say anything incriminating, by the bell announcing that dinner was being served.

The group left the meeting room and returned to the room that held the long dining table. Robert had to force himself not to lift up the ornate table covering and look at the table that was beneath it. He would have bet that the table would have been in one of the group mess halls or even a worktable in a shop, until a few hours ago. You could not tell from the top, but he was sure that these people would not have a dedicated formal dinner table set aside. Just as a just in case, a VIP meal was needed to be sat on it.

Each seat had a name plate sat next to it, so that a good mix could be made of the group. As the food was served and the bottles opened, that Robert and his group had brought. This help lubricate the group at the table, and soon small talk broke out among them. Robert was willing to let the small talk continue. He had a feeling this was almost like a Founding Day meal that was held back home, once a year. He did not want to be the one to bring up work, and possibly ruin the atmosphere. As it turned out after the main course was set, Ms. Wilson brought work back into the conversation.

"Captain Copeland, you were asking about my long-term plans a while ago. I was thinking of just blowing you off, but then I had some time to think. If it was not for you and your crew stopping by, and more importantly staying and helping. We would not be able to do this. So maybe, it's not that much of a risk to let you in on my little plan."

The part of the dinner guests, that lived in the system were both smiling and chuckling at her comment. "After we reset Alfa, some of my people started going through the list of things the auto factory could produce. Beside the Twinning mode you told us about and the Olympus files, I told you about. I, and more importantly the crews, on that station did not know that they could make. We just would produce what we have always been using them to make. After they get that new factory up and running, Charley will twin again. I want four more of those things up and running in this system, as soon as we can. That is my short-ranged goal, which I would like to have done in less than a year."

She was watching Robert very closely as she spoke. "After that? Then my midterm goals are a bit vaguer, for right now. We are very short in the total number of small crafts, that we should have on hand. I hope to rectify that and build maybe twenty additional small craft of various types, that we need in this system to keep everyone safe. We should be able to fix that shortage very quickly, with two new factory satellites working on the problem almost full time. We also do not have any heavy lift capability in system, like dropships, that are left that are in working order. We had an old Buccaneer, but it had a catastrophic engine failure that killed the whole crew. That was when I started trying to reach the home office and notice something might be wrong."

Robert was listening and taking mental notes as she kept talking. That little bit of information did explain why they had only used small craft to recover all of the wrecks. This system had not only been on its last legs, it had been on its last toes when they had jumped in. They might have been six months to a year away, from being another abandon and lost system.

Luzena kept talking, after she stopped to have a sip of wine. "I have notified my crews, in the repair bay. That they are level 3 for priority, on anything they need to fix the Pirate Leopard CV. That puts them only below anything to support what we have now in operation, and production to support the twinning process for the new factories."

She held up her hand to stop anyone from saying something. "Yes! I know that it would be cheaper in man hours, just to scrap it. But I think that it will be worth it, just to get those teams some practice on working on a craft of that size. At least before they have to start building a second dropship from scratch. I would like to have two of those fighter carrier dropships, under my orders for defense of this system. It would make us a tougher target for any pirates, that might still be around. So, besides a second dropship? My long-term goal is to have a medium class factory module built." Now, she stopped talking and looked at the faces around the table, to see if she could read what they were thinking.

Robert was not that surprised, by what she had said. It was that he was surprised, by the scale of her plans. He had thought that she was an ambitious person. Now he had been proven correct, about that assumption. "Ms. Wilson. First off? There is a big difference between a 2,500ton small module, and a 17,000ton medium class factory station. You cannot just copy the software from what you have and install it on one of those monsters. They just don't work that way. I have no idea where you could find anything like that, outside of a major Inner Sphere house. You might want to take the increase personnel requirements, and just build more of the smaller modules. After you get a few of them built. They can grow exponentially, but you would need more people. The good part? It would be that all of your people would be trained on that one type of facility."

Robert kept a slight smile on his face, as he got ready to drop his cold shower. "You want to build a dropship on your own? That is impressive. Me, I just would sell spare parts to any passerby. All it would take is two or three visitors, before word got out that you had spare parts for jumpships, and some dropships. I would keep it very quiet, that you're making most of the parts yourselves. It could draw a lot of unwanted attention to you. That unwanted attention could come with a lot of firepower. And besides, you would get more value for finished products, than you can from ores."

Luzena smiled back at Robert. "I was thinking about that and having the smaller modules. They would make it harder, if we are raided. It would be less of a total loss. If we lost one of those to a damaging by a raid of some kind, compared to losing a medium sized one. The downside? It is that they are limited to parts that are a certain size and mass. Say no items more than 200 tons or so. That would make replacing major sections of the Habitats or this station almost impossible. Much less supplying the repair bays, with parts to support any dropship, and jumpship repairs that they might have to perform. There is a way around it, but it would take a lot of skill on our crewmember's part. I would like word to get out. That we have open repair bays, or a very short wait time for them.

Luzena had a glassy eyed look. "We already have the metallic resources, and if we can get more traffic? That will bring in foods, organics, expendables and other luxury items that we can use. I already had been told about the special software needed to run a larger sized Factory satellite. I was told that it would be different, and very hard to find. That is short of a major capital world. I know of about six different systems that have that class of module in operation. I worked with each of them firsthand. I hope, that by the time the larger module is complete. I will be able to beg, pay, or steal a copy of the software for us to use." She said the last part with a slight laugh, but Robert was not too sure it was meant totally in jest.

Robert smiled and went into salesmen mode. He put his silverware down, took a sip of wine and got ready to skin this cat. "Well, Ms. Wilson."

Luzena interrupted Robert before he could finish. "Captain please, call me Luzena." A few of her people almost choked on their food, and they could not hide it from the visitors. Not one of them had ever heard this person offer up her first name to anyone, ever!

Robert let a sly smile come to his salesmen's face. "Okay Luzena. Then please call me Robert. Now that we are on a first name basis." This was going well Robert thought. " _Let's see what we can do about some battlemech trading_."

The woman nodded and shot a look at her subordinates. A look that said if you say a word. I will put you out an airlock, without a spacesuit. She was enjoying having someone, that she thought was her equal. That was rare for her, and she would not want to waste the time.

Robert just let it go and tried to make it look like he didn't notice. The look she had given to the people around her. "If you're looking at having two carriers and your fighters in the bays on this station filled? Then you're going to be short some fighters. I have a few, that I am willing to sell. We don't have much in the way of repair parts for them, but we have six fighters and one more that is wrecked but repairable. If you can find the parts for it?"

Luzena smiled at the older man. "Thank you, Robert. That is very kind of you. But we are short on cash, and we can't trade too much more of the ores we have on hand to you. I have written contracts for most of what we have on hand, and most of them have paid half in advance for them. If I knew that they would not be coming for it, or the contracts were fake? Well, that would be a different story. Until they are in breach of contract, on their end? I just cannot risk it. I would love to have three or four more fighters, but I just don't have the capital. If I did? I would be writing up the paperwork, right now and not having drinks with you.

Robert had hoped that he would be able to move the dropship. But if she did not have the capital to purchase one or two fighters? Then there was no way she would be able to get the capital together to buy the White Rabbit from him.

"Luzena, I had to try. I am a merchant, after all." He smiled at the women and around to the rest of her team. He wanted to make sure that everyone knew that things were still going well, just like any other dinner between friends.

The rest of the meal and after dinner drinks was a nice diversion, for all of the participants of the dinner. Most people would have said, that very little work was accomplished. But this could turn out to be a groundbreaking agreement between a would-be supplier, and a transport company. That same company, that also seemed to have a knack for making powerful people mad. They also had a knack for having high tech items to trade, to anyone who might want to pick up a few.

The crew of the White Rabbit, and its cargo master were not any luckier trying to find bulk cargos. The station just did not have the ready supply for sale that they needed. Several times offers were made to sign a contract with only half or less down, for delivery at some later date. They reported, later to the command staff. That the mood of the locals had improved markedly, when word went out that the first part of the new factory module had been placed into orbit.

There had been a special news announcement, that the second part of the module was now under construction on Alfa. All of the inhabitants were advised, to be careful, and that any new parts or tools that had to be made. That it would slow the construction on the new support station. A timer was displayed on select screens around the station, which showed a countdown to when the next part of the module would be launched. A second set of numbers were listed as an estimate of when the new factory station might be completed.

When Robert was told about this later that night, when they all had returned to the White Rabbit. He had to admire Ms. Wilson, for that bit of fiction about the building of the new module. It was somewhat true. It would slow them down, when they had to divert resources to support making other things. It would also make it seem that Joe Public, had a hand in directly building the new craft. Robert thought to himself, that he needed to remember that little trick. You never know when something like that might come in handy, later.

Early the next day. The dropship separated from the recharging station and reattached itself to the jumpship that would carry it away from this station. When the White Rabbit had started its way back to the jumpship. It had notified the station Traffic Control, that the jumpship Styx would be leaving this system. Robert was on the bridge of the Styx when it was time to leave.

They had to wait for the jump sail to be fully folded and stored. This had caused an unexpected delay. It was when there was a problem with the system, that was used for this job. It had simply quit working halfway through the exercise of pulling the sail in. It was a simple fix, of a part that was known to wear out often. That meant that they had spares on hand, in the limited cargo area of the jumpship to do the repairs. The crew had replaced this type of part, twice already on this mission. The odds were that it would need to be replaced again, before they were able to get home.

Before the jump drive was activated, Robert sent a personal message to the mistress of the station. He was telling her, that he hoped to be back this way again. But he did not know when that would be. He wished her luck on her expansion plans, and that he would pass along the information about her open repair bays.

 **Notes** :

 **Deck plans for a recharge station**. I could not find any deck plans or other information about what the layout on something like the Olympus class station might be. So, I made it up.

 **Supply contracts**. Those were legal and valid documents, as far as she had proof of. If no one comes to pick up those orders? Then she can legally resell them to any third party. I did not want Robert to get to much stuff from this system.

 **Any Jobs for those that fail the few active military slots each year**? What better job for a failed almost elemental, but a job working with heavy weapons.

 **Good guys/Bad guys?** You make friends and sometimes you make enemies. By now Copeland had two enemies. Now they have one low powered friend (meat factor) and one middling powerful one (systems manager). We will have to see about the rest.

 **Missing/lost system.** ComStar made 5 whole star systems disappear, so what is to say that a company could not make one small outpost fall off of the books.


	21. Chapter 21 9 May 3047

**Chapter 21**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **9 May 3047**

 **On the road again to the** **Dunianshire system** **.**

Over the next month the jumpship stopped and traded in three different systems, before they made it back to the Dunianshire system. When they did return to this center of trade? They did not have to submit to any type of customs inspection this time, when they transmitted their identification to the system's Jump Point Traffic Control. After the jump sail had been deployed and checked out, Robert made contact with the main traffic control office for this system. They had been in system almost a full 24 hours, as his people worked to shift some of the cargos around between the four ships.

He was cleared to launch all three dropships to the habitable planet of the system, without so much as a ten-minute delay after the speed of light was taken into account. He had sent two different personal messages, before the dropships had left the jump point. The first and the most important message, in his eyes, was the message he sent to Lora. The second message was sent to Mr. McDonogh, the head of the local MMM office. They were radio messages, so he did not get a chance to talk to them in person before the dropship made land fall. Having a conversation with a delay of longer than a few seconds each way was a pain to deal with, and it was very rarely put up with in this day in age.

Someone must have pulled a few strings while Robert and his dropships were on the multiday burn towards the planet. That was because, all three of the dropships were able to have a landing point right next to each other on the very busy drop port. These three landing points were at the far end of the drop port, but that was okay with Robert. As long as all three of the dropships were within mutually supporting fire positions for each other, that was good enough for Roberts peace of mind. He rather likes the idea that there was some separation and distance, between his ships and anyone else's ships. It also would allow him to keep a sharp look out over most of the avenues of approach, and he can also see the patrols that were working the nearby edge of the drop port.

After the landing area around the dropships had cooled, from the engine's blasted heat. The refueling lines were brought out by the refueling crews for all their ships and locked into the now open ports of the drop port's landing cribs. It takes only an hour for the massive fuel tanks on all the dropships to be filled with the cold liquid reaction mass, that they needed to make the plasma thrust. This was a major port, so this was supported by the built-in infrastructure of the drop port.

Robert was in the main meeting room of the Mule class Lisbon Maru, doing paperwork for the local Traffic Control office. As soon as he had submitted the electronic paperwork. He sent word to all of the dropships, that the ship's commanders could send the first group of crewmembers out on the town for some personal shopping and recreation. Even if they did not want to go shopping. They could just spend some time under open skies and breathe unrecycled air.

Before they had jumped into this system again. Robert had made a ships wide announcement, that this was going to be the last major Port call, before they went home. This was not a surprise, but his announcement had made it official. He asked for a detailed report on any empty cargo space, from each Cargo Master. He was not surprised, to find out that those reports were done and waiting for the mission commander to ask for them. He would not be able to sell the White Rabbit. Not without buying another ship, so they could carry the cargos they already had. Robert had not been that active in trying to sell the blockade runner after the battle in the Bivouac system.

After reviewing those reports. He let the dropship's commanders post a notice that the personnel cargo space would be raised to a maximum of 1.5 tons at the other Captain's discretion. He could have raised it a little more. But he did not want to do that on this trip, and then not be able to do it again. If that happened? Then those other crews might think that they were being punished, if they did not get that same amount of storage space in the future. Robert was planning ahead for at least a few more of these missions. He had no idea if high command would agree with him or not. They might even decide that if a mission does go again? He might not be the one in command of the mission.

Robert was starting to get worried, that he had not received a return or acknowledgement message from Lora. He sent a second message, that he had adjusted the tone of his phrasing. Then she sent a short-worded message, that she was on another contract on the other side of the planet. In her return message. It said that she would be wrapping it up by the end of the day, and she would see him as soon as she could. She already had a purchased ticket on the next Zanadu jet heading back to Londinium. She did not want to have a conflict of interest, so she would not be able to contact him again or risk breaking some of the local laws. They were on thin ice until she had finished the job she was working on, and the paperwork was filed in all of the appropriate departments. Robert was thinking that he should have sent her a message at the last stop that had a working HPG. Hindsight is 20/20, after all.

Just before Lora got her digital message to him. A message had come in from MMM that the person he was trying to contact, was temporarily out of the office. His deputy could set aside some time for a meeting, if she had an idea of what Captain Copeland wanted to have the meeting about. He did not send a reply about anything to an unknown underling. Robert put the message aside for Lora to deal with later, when she came to see them. He thought he might be getting the pass off, by someone in MMM until they could prove that they were not going to be wasting someone high up in the food chains time. After the last set of deals, Robert was a little surprised by this turn of events.

Robert tried not to spend too much time on the bridges of the dropships, this time. It would undermine the authority of their Captains, again. He had set up his main office in the meeting room on the Lisbon Maru. The meeting room in the White Rabbit was a lot smaller, and he wanted to spread out a little. He only planned to stop at each of the dropships, while they were planet side. He wanted to make sure that the other crews would not think, he was playing favorites among the three dropships. It was best to stop those rumors, even if this part of the mission was almost over. The shifting would also get his mind off the idea, that he had made mistakes. One that when he got back? High command was going to find something he missed.

Robert had just come up with his visiting schedule to see the other ships, when the captain of the Maru knocked on the hatch to his temporary office and entered the space. The metal hatch was open to the ship's corridor, so he had stepped into the meeting room after the knock or rap on the hard metal hatch.

"Sir? Communication took down a message for you." The officer had an odd expression on his face, as he passed a folded hard copy message form to his commander. He went to a rigid position of attention, after the slip of paper left his hand.

Robert was watching the man as he took the offered form, from the officer. Robert kept his face still, as he noted the other man looked like the form might be a poisonous reptile of some kind. He looked down and reads the note. He had to read it three times, before he looked back up at the other man that was standing stiff back waiting for his commander to react.

"So, I have been invited to a meeting over in the ComStar compound. Did anyone acknowledge that we received this message, and that we might be sending anyone to this meeting they are asking for us to attend?

"No Sir! I was there when the message came in. They were told that the request would be passed along to whoever needs to see it. The Form went from her hand directly into mine, and then into your hands. No one else has seen this." The officer was eye locked on a point in space that was about a foot over Robert's head.

The other man was pointing at the paper now resting on the desk. "Sir? I had no idea how you wanted to handle it. I thought it was my duty, as the "officer on deck", to bring it directly to you. Post haste!"

Robert picked up the paper, that he had not realized he had put down on the tabletop. He rereads what was written on it again. He just wanted to make sure it was not a bad dream, or something. He crumpled the paper into a ball, and then looked at his handy work. He lazily tossed it across the room, and into a trash collection unit. He had an image of the Colonial game called Pyramid that was growing in popularity on his home planet.

"What message? If anyone from ComStar asked for a meeting, or makes an inquiry about shipping or selling anything? Write it down, and then dump it where it belongs. I do not want any of those religious nut jobs anywhere near our ships, or our people. Please let the other ship's captains know about the message you gave me, and my directive about ComStar. If there are any questions, from any of the four of them? Let them know they can contact me, no matter what time it might be. We are almost home, but we still need to keep our guards up." There had not been any useful recovered data on the Pirates' computers, but most of the command staff thought that they had been paid by someone in ComStar to attack them.

The dropship officer saluted his superior and did a parade ground about face to leave the officer alone to his work. Robert spent the rest of the day finishing up the required paperwork and reports. These were the ones that he would have to turn in when they returned to New Circe. If he got them done now? It would save him a lot of time on the back end of this mission. When his local communication device chirped to let him know that it was time to go to dinner, he was surprised at the amount of time that had passed. Tonight, it would be him, Jess, and two other crewmembers who had done outstanding work having dinner together. He collected his noteputor and left the meeting room/ turned public office.

Robert had called ahead, to let Cafe' Le Chiffre know that they were coming. Robert did not want to take a chance, and not be able to get a table. That would have been a little embarrassing, and this time they did not have Lora to act as a speed pass to get a table in a place that Robert knew was very popular with the locals. As it was, when Robert stepped out of the taxi? The doorman recognized him immediately.

They were welcomed like long lost, and very close family members. They had not recognized the name, that he had used when they had been contacted for the reserved table. But they did know Robert's and Jess's faces. That was all that mattered. The visitors, all just let the locals pick a meal for each of them. When the meals were dropped off, not one of the plates would have been on the menu. The two crewmembers receiving the reward were very impressed with the dinner.

After a great meal, the group left the Cafe'. The group flagged down another hover taxi, that took them to the main shopping area of the city. It was after they were several hours into the walking and shopping, that Jess noticed that she had seen the same person in three different shops. Robert almost called an end to their relaxing trip, right then. But after looking around on his own, he just kept a sharper eye out. He would stay on alert, until it was time to make their way back to the dropships with their purchases that they could carry. Large purchases would be delivered the next day, going directly into the dropships. All in all. The group had a good time, and the two hard working crewmembers would tell of their amazing time with the two senior officers. Very quickly, they would be the envy of the entire small fleet. It was going to be a very positive motivator for the rest of the crew, just as Robert hoped it would be.

When Robert and Jess checked in with the duty staff on the bridge, after shopping and dinner. They were told that there were four different attempts, by ComStar, to set up a meeting with Captain Copeland or one of the other dropship's captains. Robert looked at Jess and just shrugged his shoulders. He headed to the gym, before going to his room for some sleep.

The next few days went fast, and the crews were rotating off the ships. They were spending time in town picking up things, that they wanted to take home with them. Lora had showed up a day later than planned. It would seem that the Jet had a last-minute mechanical issue, and she had to catch the one flying the next day. The highlight had been when Robert had to sign off on a 10 million C-Bills transfer, to cover a group lot of jumpship parts, that could fit most classes of jumpship. The communication staff also told him that the ComStar compound was sending messages every two hours to the dropships, and even the jumpship was being hounded by attempts to set up a meeting. After the last message. Robert thought something was going on about all of the delays Lora had to deal with, and it was starting to make the back of his mind itch.

It would also seem that ComStar was starting to get upset, with the people taking the messages. It would seem. That very few people ignored a "summons" to attend a meeting, when it was sent by one of the religious nuts. By now the communications techs were having fun with it, and they were not taking it personally when ComStar vented some anger at them. They were even keeping score, and whoever got the most curses directed at them won. They even were awarded additional points, for volume of the person that had called. What they did not know, was that Robert had added a bottle of 24-year-old Whisky to whoever "won" each of the classes of bets dealing with these attempts of communications.

Robert relieved the commander of the Maru, so that he could have some time off and on the town. Robert always liked sitting a watch shift on the command bridge. It made him feel like he still had his fingers on the pulse of the ship, and her crew. At least for a few hours, he could feel like a real captain again. He knew how hard it was for a Commander or Captain of a ship to have any "down time" while on mission. If he could help out and give them a break? That would help with that stress point on a crewmember. Besides he would enjoy it.

After Robert went to bed, it was around 2am local when his head hit the pillow. When he came back up onto his "normal" shift. He was alerted to a short message, that came from Lora at 6 am, while he was off shift. She wanted to have a meeting for lunch at her normal place, around noon local. Robert told the communication tech, to tell her, that he would meet her there. He also told them, to let Jess know about the short notice meeting. She needed to get with the ship's Captains to arrange for two escorts to be assigned to them. Robert left the bridge and went back to his cabin, after his daily update brief. He laid back down for some more much needed sleep.

Robert did not eat any breakfast. So, when he met up with Jess and the two escorts? He was ready for some food, and lots of it. It did not have to be that great of food to fill the need in his stomach, but from what he knew. It was, that the food he would be given would be great. What the local law enforcement did not know, and would not know, unless something went badly at lunch. It was that each of the four members were armed with at least a powerful energy-based holdout weapon concealed on their persons. Robert made sure of this before they left the dropship, just in case. He had thought that he was being paranoid, but he was not going to take any chances. Not being this close to the end, of this run.

It was a short walk to the group transportation pick-up zone. He was mildly surprised, that it had moved closer to Copeland's three dropships since they had first landed at this drop port. It had not taken long for those companies to realize that his crews had money to burn, and they were more than willing to spend it. The four of them piled into a large black and white hover sedan taxi, that had just pulled up to the pickup point as they stepped under the cover of the stand. Soon, off they went to the meeting with Lora at the Cafe.

Today the lunch crowd was a lot smaller than what Robert remembered, from his other visits. The check-in person seemed to also be in a bad mood today. Maybe, it was because of the light customer turn out. Robert kept looking over his shoulder, as they checked in and waited to be taken to their seats.

That was the first major hint something was wrong, and Robert would kick himself later for not noticing it in the first place. What brought both Jess and Robert into full alert mode, was that they were not taken to the second floor to have their meal and meeting. They were taken to a back-corner booth, on the first level of the restaurant. The booth they were brought to already had someone, that was already sitting in one spot of the 10-person booth. And it was not Lora.

The man sitting in the booth was tracking them like a weapon's turret, as soon as he had a line of sight on the advancing group of off-worlders. When they were close enough to the booth, he spoke just loud enough to be heard. "Ahh Captain Copeland! It's good of you to accept my invitation to a meeting, finally. Please, have a seat. All of you, please."

The well-dressed man said and pointed to the empty seats across from him, but he did not rise from his thickly cushioned seat. He would only stand, when he was talking to someone who was as powerful or more powerful than himself. There were very few people in the whole Inner Sphere he felt fell into that category, and none of them were on this planet or in this local political grouping of stars on the edge of civilized space

Robert was fighting the urge not to pull his weapon from its hidden location. The front part of his brain knew, that this would be a bad idea. Robert casually looked around the room. He notices that six sets of eyes, both male and female, were watching them closely. What Robert did not know was weather they were guards for this man, back up, or a snatch team? Robert did not know, but it was a very public place to do some of those actions. He was reasonably sure, that his people were safe. So, he gave a slight head nod, and his group took the offered seats in the plush booth. After everyone took their seats, and they had stopped moving around the larger booth. Robert looked at the man across from him, a little more closely.

"Well? You're not Lora, but you know my name. That kind of gives the advantage to you, Sir." Robert did a slight tilt of his head, and he could feel this face go bland. He did not think that his salesmen's face was the right one for this meeting. At least it was not the right look, for now. He thought bland or nervous was the expected look.

Robert had a good idea of who this person might work for, but he was not for sure. If he guessed wrong? That could be disastrous, for both parties. When Robert had sat down in the booth. He did it in such a way, that he could pull out the short-ranged pistol if he needed to. He was pretty sure that he could get the weapon out in such a way, that no one else in the room would see him do it. Then again, he had not spent that much time practicing a move like that. As he settled into the booth, his hands were staying very close to the weapon and his wallet.

The other man gave a salesmen's smile, that he thought was effective. Robert automatically wanted to pat his suit pocket, to make sure his wallet was still in place. The man looked like he was about to mug someone, but his voice was sickly smooth. "So true. I'm Igarashi Miya. You could say, I work for ComStar. We have been trying to set up a meeting with you, for some time now. But for some reason? You never returned our attempts at setting up said meeting. Some people in my organization, think that this is very rude of you. I came up with this little game, to see if it would work to get some of your time. Looks like I was right, and this is the only way we could get you into a meeting with US. I hope you don't mind my little sleight of hand." The look he was giving the new arrivals, was one. That said he did not care, if they were mad about his game playing or not.

Robert could hear the word US was in capital letters. Robert was just waiting and looking at the other man. After only a few minutes of silence, Robert decided to play the game. As they sat there. He knew that the other man, wanted him to make the next move. Robert knew that this was dangerous ground, that he was about to tread upon. It was not the first time that a supply run had rubbed ComStar the wrong way.

"Well Mr. Miya? You wanted this meeting. So, what would you like to talk about?" Robert had to stay on his toes with this man. It was better to let him do most of the talking. Robert was okay with this, and he prided himself on being a very good listener. He was in intelligence gathering mode, but his mind did not call it that. He was just hoping that he would not give too much useful intelligence to this man, in return. Robert had never truly understood the old saying about seeing a shark's smile. Now he did, and it sent a slight chill down his back.

"Captain Copeland, I was told that you were a sharp one." The other man used his left hand to open the left side of his expensive jacket. He opened the jacket, a little slower than what was normal for the average person. That let the other side of the table see into that now exposed area, before his hand disappeared to maybe find a concealed weapon.

This style of move gave Robert information, and he needed all of the information about this man he could get. Now he knew that this person had dealt with the wild side, before he got fitted for an expensive suit of clothes. With the jacket now open. The ComStar man pulled out a folded-up piece of paper. He was making a big show of pulling the long sheets of paper out of his inner pocket. He was making a game out of it, and it should have started to grade on the nerves of his target. He wanted these strangers on edge. When you are on edge, you tended to make more mistakes. Mistakes that the spy master was intending to capitalize on.

Igarashi Miya unfolded the sheet of paper eight times, until it was what would be called legal size. Robert could not see what was written on it. But from his angle? He could see that the whole page was filled with letters and numbers, but he could not read them. The ink was very light, and the marks were too small. You would think that it would be a computer printout and not handwritten whatever in this day and age.

"You have caused some ripples, since you showed up to sell that one salvaged small jumpship. That did give you a good bit of capital, to refill your cargo bays and pay some bills. Did it not?" His eyes had not looked at the page, he was pulling information from his own mind. The sheet of paper was more or less a prop. It did have important and useful information, but the owner had a well-trained and very sharp mind.

Robert decided to play his part and looked the other man levelly in the eyes. "So, Mr. Miya. Why does selling a small Scout class jumpship to MMM, draw the attention from something as vast as ComStar to me?"

Robert put on what he knew was a fake looking smile on his face and tried to score a point, early in this game. "I must also say. That you're the first person from ComStar, that I have seen. That does not wear the long robes, of that order when they have exited a ComStar Compound." Robert had to catch himself, and not to refer to them as nut cases or some other derogatory names he had used in the recent past. Robert could tell that he got the point, that he had wanted to get with the off the cuff comment. It was when the other man's face dropped the fake smile a little, but he recovered quickly. This also gave Robert information. This was a pro at playing, this type of game.

"Oh no! Your name was forwarded to Canopus IV, before you sold that ship to Majesty Manufacturing. And I find that the robes just get in the way of things, on a day to day basis when I am working with outside contacts. It seems that one of your stopovers between the deep Periphery, and here. You were noticed to be selling high end computer systems, to one of the local planetary leaders on that back-water planet."

Igarashi looked down at his notes again and raised an eyebrow at the Captain. Then he returned the head tilt of Robert's. "They seemed to be very advanced computers, for this area. Besides those machines you were selling. And I don't know how you did it? But somehow, you upset one of the senior members of a ComStar station along the way. You upset them enough. That they sent a notice up the chain of command, that you might be a threat to ComStar. That is not something that is sent out without warrant, in my opinion.

The spy looked down his nose at Robert, and one corner of his mouth twitched down just a few millimeters. "The report was evaluated by some of the proper staff members. Then it was discarded, at first. Then you were noticed to have been selling more of those same classes of computer systems, that you were supposed to have been sold out of. Also, you added some old Star League ultra-class autocannons to your sales list somewhere along the way. You traded these two items, as you traveled around the Magistracy of Canopus and the Aurigan Coalition for hard cash and for some very odd cargos."

Robert had a good idea of who they had upset, but he was a little surprised that that little man had that much power at his fingertips. Yet somehow, he was still stationed out in the middle of nowhere. Like he had been, when Robert had met him over a half a year ago. Robert gave the ComStar man a shoulder shrug.

"I am just trading what I have found on my travels and hope that others might want, what I have for sale." This was not the first time Robert had been asked something like this, and he had a well-rehearsed line to give out.

The ComStar man looked at the Captain with hooded eyes, like a viper. "Now, Captain. Let's see. Your ship has not been seen in the MC in over a decade, if not two. It was like you just popped onto the space lanes out of thin air. Now? let's see if I have the story, right? You and your company found a scout class jumpship, that was carrying a pirate leopard CV. It was called the Hobgoblin and was lost sometime during the time of the 1st Secession War. You were able to find a cache of high-end computers, and some late Star League era advanced auto-cannons on those two ships."

Igarashi folded his hands under his chin, to look at Robert with a level gaze. "That was quite a spot of luck, you had Captain Copeland. If that story is true? That would mean you had a lot of things break your way." The end comment was very snide, when it left the lips of the unknown power player for ComStar. It was matching the look on his face.

Jess jumped in, and she started to sputter and turn red as she counter fired. It was just like she had been coached to do, and until now. She had not been able to use that coaching. This had been rehearsed, so she knew that she had a part to play. It was just a good thing that she was there to act as a foil. Six other people on the mission had been coached to do exactly the same thing. "Luck! More like a huge chunk of work, that we are into for tens of man years' worth of effort. It cost us ten lives lost, and every spare part we could find or rig, to get that thing to take a charge again!

Her eyes were shooting daggers at the suit across the table from her. She put her own snide tone in her voice. "You are calling it luck! Captain Copeland maybe you should add that line to the letters to the families, that you had to write on this little lucky find of ours." She put a bite on the end of her statement, and she shot the ComStar man with more daggers.

Igarashi did not blink, but he leaned back deeper into the booth's back pad. Then he put his hands flat on the table. Before he could say anything more. The wait staff deposited a food filled plate in front of each of the people at the table. The flashing of plates caused enough interference to let him get his face back under control, and it gave him time to think about his next move.

"Let's delay the rest of the meeting, shall we? I took the liberty to order the daily lunch special for everyone. I was told it was very good, I hope you don't mind."

The group was eating, but no one was enjoying the fine meal in front of them. They were eating quickly, and soon the wait staff would be picking up the dirty flat ware. This did not go un-noticed by the ComStar Representative, who was not eating as fast as the other off worlders. After the last person from Robert's group had completed their meal. Igarashi signaled that they could take his half-finished plate away also. He was hoping that the good food would put these people at ease. He was used to using a mix of hard and soft pressure to get what he wanted out of anyone.

With the food plates gone. The ComStar man was ready to start the grilling all over again. "Captain Copeland. I think, like any good cover story. It is mostly true, but only….. mostly true. I think your hiding something." He could still see the dagger being directed at him from the woman, that the files said she was this man's third officer.

Robert smiled at the other man. He made sure it was the same fake one, that he had used before. He was trying to mislead this man, anyway he could. "What do you think I'm hiding?" It was time for the other man to put more of his own cards on the table, for the whole group to see. Robert was playing, like he might have a weaker hand or bluffing.

Igarashi gave a sly smile, that looked more predatory than friendly. "So, its story time is it? Okay. I can do that one better. What I think happened, is that you found a lost colony out there somewhere off the map. They had that wrecked jumpship and maybe it did have the Leopard on its collar, and maybe not. You found some kind of old Star League or Rim World depot, or wrecked cargo ship on that planet. You looted it, to use as extra trade goods. The ones that you have been sprinkling around the MC and other border areas."

He stopped talking and looked around the table. All Igarashi was getting, even from the bodyguards, were blank looks in return. He waited and waited, but he was not getting the feedback he was wanting or expecting. His level of frustration was starting to rise. This was not going the way he had expected it. After to many seconds of dead air, he went to the point.

"What I would like to know. Is how big of a depot have you found? Is it a ground base or orbital based depot? What else did you find there? ComStar can help this lost Colony you have found and bring it back into the greater fold of Humanity." This was not the first time that he had given the last part of his speech, but it had been many years since the last time it had passed his lips.

Robert let his face go flat or poker. "What makes you think we found a lost Colony?" This was part of the cover story. It was about the second layer, but still it was covered in their orders. He just was not happy that ComStar was that deep already.

Igarashi put his hands back down on the paper and pulled it tight. This was not going the way he thought it would or should, for that matter. This Copeland was good, but he still had a few more cards left to play. Now it looked like Copeland wanted to hold his own cards for as long as he could. " _I have to get him to show me something. He is a merchant, so I just have to find the right kind of bait to get him on the hook_."

"Why do I think you found a colony? Let's look at what you have been trading high tech weapons and equipment for, on your travels. You have picked up a large group of Industrial Mechs, spare parts for them, construction equipment, and you have been picking up packaged long storage food. You also have been buying bulk meats of everything but fish, that you have frozen on one of your dropships. You have picked up a large quantity of medical supplies. The medical supplies were antibiotics, various anti-pain meds, basically anything, but small medical equipment and bandages. You also have picked up fertilized eggs for goats, various beef animals, sheep and even some pigs. The numbers we are talking about are not for just a hobby farm. That is unless the hobby farm takes up about a tenth of a planet."

The ComStar man gave a very real shutter. "I think that their nuts! If they are breeding those things! Pigs are nasty and vicious little animals. I can't tell you how many planets, those beasts have ruined across the Inner Sphere. It would have been better, if they just dusted themselves with cobalt laced nuks. All because the damage those things did to any local ecosystems. You also picked up samples of different types of Wheat, Corn, Rice, and other grains seeds in the several tons lot of each sample.

"About the only things that make since that you picked up, are the two mech repair stands and picking up every part that you could to fit a Merchant class jumpship. I know you have access to some old SLDF machines, because of the Sentinel and the Ironsides class fighter in your order of battle. That also explains the repair stands, that you have picked up along your travels. It also explained some of the odds and ends of JagerMech parts you have been buying along the way. So, Captain Copeland. How close am I?"

Igarashi was very pleased with himself. Everything he had said was the product of a lot of man hours put in by ROM and other ComStar assets in the local stellar group. That did not even count the number of messages, that had been sent over about a quarter of human space via HPG. He thought that it was a very good hammer, to show this upstart how out of his depth he was. He needed to be shown that he was in the deep end of the pool with the big boys and girls.

Robert leaned back in his chair and gave the other man a little smile. "Close, kind of. We did find a few "lost" colonies out there in our travels over the years, but we did not find some Castle Brian or anything. We might have made a deal with one or two of those "lost" worlds. Why does that interest you, and the rest of ComStar to keep such a close eye on us?"

Igarashi now, for the first time was frowning. "We don't really care about you, Captain. My people are just following the mech grease. What my people want to do, is help those lost souls. One of ComStar's main directives is to help all those who are lost, to find comfort in the Word of Blake. We can offer those lost souls protection, education, and enlightenment in his holy words. We can help them come back into the larger universe of man. And they can do it, without falling into the devil's den of the so-called Great Houses. I'm sure you can see that we only want to help these lost people, to protect them from those barbarians and grave robbers of the universe."

Robert kept his face well-schooled and his hand close to the hidden weapon. "That sounds like a well-practiced speech, Mr. ComStar man. I will tell you, that one of the groups that I am working for. They don't want to have any dealings with you, or ComStar. They have asked me not to reveal their location to anyone, and your group specifically. I am a man of my word. If I was not? What kind of man would I be? Not one, that I would like to look at in the mirror."

Robert sat back himself, going deeper into the seats. If he had backup, that had been provided by something like a Black Lion? He might have left it at that. However, ComStar had access to way too much firepower, to leave it like that. He could see that Igarashi was about to blow his top. That little event could get them all killed. He needed to do something, to control this situation. He did not want to go all the way to the JarnFolk level of the cover story. This was way too soon, for that level of penetration. Besides he still thought that they could get some more mileage out of the current level of cover story.

Just as Igarashi was about to open his mouth, and level some not so vailed threats. Robert spoke up to cut him off. "I will, however, bring any written contracts or correspondence. That you or someone in your group might like to send to them. I will not bring any of your people there. I am not bringing anyone out to them, so don't even ask. That is covered by my contract, I have a copy in my jumpship's cabin if you would like to review it. I think they like their privacy, and I can understand that. If they change their minds in the future? I'm sure they will let me know, the next time I'm in their area of space."

The representative from ComStar did not like being told to go pound sand, just using different words and a nicer tone. "How do we know, that you will forward them our request? What would you say? That I think your keeping these lost souls in the dark, so that you can keep making money off of them?"

Robert gave the other man a smile, that would never be considered friendly. "You don't, and I don't really care about that or what you might think about me. I don't work for you, or your people. To tell you the truth. I'm okay with that."

The Head of all of the actions of ROM in the MC was about to order this animal to be put down, but he stopped at the last second. This Captain had just made two points and he had not lied, that Igarashi knew of. That was very important to both him personally and to ROM. Finding anyone who would stick to their guns was rare to find, out here at the end of explored space. Igarashi played one more card from his deck, and he kept his face emotionless.

"Okay Captain Copeland. You're working for them. How much do you think you're going to clear? Maybe we could hire you, to work for us. ComStar has a lot to offer someone with your skills, and the displayed skills of your crew. Your Tramp is old and pretty worn out, from the reports I have seen. You have been delayed a few times due to minor parts that needed to be replaced. How about we help you trade it in on a brand-new Star Lord class vessel. That would double the number of dropships you can carry at one time. My people could help you grow, to better fill those six drop collars. We can also help, when you need to add more dropships to fill those extra spots." His voice had switched from stern and overbearing, to sickly sweet at the drop of a hat.

Robert was looking and listening, but he was fighting an internal reaction. He knew what the right noises would be to make. "Hmmm. A Star Lord? Now, that is an amazing design. A growing shipping company could really move some cargo, with one of those. I could set up a real trade route with that one ship alone."

Finally, he could not hold it back anymore. Robert let out a belly laugh, that almost brought real tears to his eyes. It did not help with the situation. He could tell the robed nut could not understand, why this was so funny. "Look Mr. Miya. That ship is like my wife. And I would no more give her up for a new model, than I would her. You know how some mech jocks will take the pill, after being blown out of their long-term rides? Even after they have been offered a new one to replace it. Well that's me. That ship is as much a part of me, as my children. I do not want to trade her for, anything." It was not totally true, but it had more than a little ring of truth in it.

 _"_ _Well the gold did not work, how about the red."_ "Okay Robert." The command voice, was back in the local head of ROM.

The use of the Captain's first name without an invitation to do so, was a calculated insult. "As helpful as ComStar can be? It can also hinder, those it feels are not worthy. I think you have seen or heard about all of the Com Guard units on your travels. We don't just field ground units, but we also have more than a few space-based units. You would not want to make an enemy of us. You only have six fighters, and one little carrier. I assure you, that the Com Guards can field a lot more than that wherever they wish to."

Robert took the insult and gave one right back. "Look Igarashi. If that is your name? I see where you're going with this. I could use an old saying of. If you're feeling froggy, jump. I will say that I don't want to upset something as large as ComStar. Just like I would not want to upset something like House Davion. I signed a contract and swore an oath when I did so. A company is only as good as the trust, that others have in it. It would only take a rumor that I broke a contract, and I would be sunk as a person and a company. I will do everything in my power to abide both in the letter and in the spirit of the oath, that I gave with that contract I signed. Besides, if I broke a contract with them, to help you. How long would you trust me, to abide in any deals we make? As I have already said. I will take any correspondence to the leadership of the people who I have signed a contract with. What they do with your correspondence, is up to them."

Igarashi was looking around the table. He had hoped that he would be able to drive a wedge between some of them. He could tell from the looks, that he had failed. This group was just too tight knit for that tactic to work. He had hit a wall, and unless he was willing to make a scene. He was done. He had been outplayed, and he did not like it. He was kicking himself for not giving the ROM action team's leaders brief more weight, when it had first come in. He had assumed that the action team leader was just trying to cover his back side, because of a pair of blown missions. Now, he was not too sure of that first assessment. He was going to have to have a sit down with the prime team leader in a few days, and they would go over ever little detail of those two failed missions.

He was now even ready to forgive the money spent to first hire the pirate carrier, and the cost of sending the scout jump ship that had been diverted to pull them out. It had turned out that it could be true, that this Captain Copeland and his command had blasted through the surprise attack of the pirate force. Precentor Miya worked out, that he had only one more move left to make. He smoothly slid out of the booth and stood with his back ruler straight. He did a slight turn and addressed the Captain.

"Mr. Copeland, you have not made a friend today. I tried to be reasonable, but you will not have it. Mr. Copeland! I hope you never have an emergency, because I will tell you now. ComStar will not help you. Good day."

Robert watched as first Igarashi Miya, and then four of the other tables had emptied right behind him. They all walked out of the restaurant, in single file line of intimidation. They all went to the door and were soon out of sight, in under a minute. Robert had no idea, if they paid their bills or not. He was just glad they were gone, and for that. He was happy with just that, for now.

" _Now to find out how much damage was done."_ When one of his escorts looked like he was about to say something. Robert gave a sharp head nod to not say a word. Robert started to slide out of the booth, and he was quickly followed by the rest of his group. Robert could still fill eyes following him, as they made their way to the front door. He did not think that all of the ComStar people had left the room with the one man. He would have left a few people behind, to see how someone had reacted after he had left the building.

Robert went to the front desk clerk, who still looked upset. Robert did not have to fake the concern look on his face. "Michael? I can tell you, that this was a surprise meeting. And it was one I could have done without. I don't think that Gentlemen like's me that much."

Michael looked back into the first-floor dining room, before making eye contact with the jumpship Captain. He did not so much as just make some mouth noises to fill the air with platitudes. Michael had not liked it, when the ComStar man had come in, and demanding to be part of the restaurant's plans. He was positive that the ComStar people had put listening devices all over the place, while they waited for Robert and his people to show up. The last thing the doorman wanted that organization to hear, was that he was saying what he really thought about those robed crazies. That would be more than just bad for business. There could be some legal repercussions, if the lawyer was well paid enough.

Robert picked up on the look, and he gave the other man a knowing smile. "I know what you mean. They left in such a hurry, that I was wondering. Did they take care of the check for our meals?" No matter what listening devices might be in the area, this would sound innocuous enough.

Michael gave the strange off worlder an odd look, before speaking. "Yes sir? They took care of the bill, before you arrived for your meeting today. They had asked for a group rate, I'm afraid."

Robert nodded and without another word. He pulled out his wallet, and he passed a 100 C-Bill note over to Michael. After passing over the money, he quickly moved to join his group waiting on the sidewalk. Half of his people were looking outside, and the other part were keeping an eye on their commander. Michael nodded his head up and down and put the bill under the desktop. Normally a meal for four had only been about a 10 or 15 C-bill per diner. It was a quick and quiet ride back to the drop port.

A few hours later. Copeland was leading a briefing to his staff. He had been able to get Lora, on the emergency radio. She had been delayed, again. This time it was by the burglary alarm going off at her office. She had been able to make it to the drop port to join the meeting, only because Robert had delayed it. Robert looked around the group, and he was trying to gauge them. Robert put his hands on the desktop.

"Okay people. It looks like we have not only upset some of the locals, but also some powerful ComStar personnel. They did the odd digging around, and we are at level two of our cover story. It is the thickest and the hardest to break layer. That is for the simple fact, that it is the one that is the truest. I think they are going to be spending a lot of time checking out a few leads, before they make their next move against us. I do know, that MMM will not take a meeting with me. Lora, what can you tell us about that situation?" Robert did a little tilt of his head toward the woman that was sporting an impressive frown.

Lora was beyond upset. The alarm at her office had been as far as she could tell, false. She now was betting the alarm had two reasons to have gone off. "Yes, Captain. I have been trying to buy items on your published want list, as your listed factor. I have not been able to make much headway. It seems like every time, that I had a line on something that matches up with your published list. It would dry up or someone would get it, before I could close the deal. Last week a friend of mine said that ComStar ROM or some of the other intelligence sections, were looking into me and my clients. This is not the first time that this has happened to me or my peers. So, I did not think much of the warning.

Lora looked around and then looked back up at Robert. "MMM is running scared. They sell a lot of spare parts to the local Com Guards units and to others across the whole MC. ComStar also acts as a major supplier for stuff that MMM buys from other companies outside of the MC, and the reselling of them. They have been using that money and contacts, to increase production from sixty mechs a year to something higher, maybe spreading into other production lines in the near future. Until things cool down. I don't think they will be buying or selling much, directly to us. That has spilled over into the local mercenary and militia markets. I also think I'm being followed."

Robert had not been able to talk to Lora before the meeting, so he was getting hit cold with this information. "Okay, if we don't line up anything new by this afternoon? Then we close up shop. I will contact the bank and pull most of the money out. Yes, I know that this is not normal for a supply run. And I'm not taking it all. I am just going to lower the balance, to make it look like we are running scared from ComStar. Lora, I need you to look into moving a Merchant class jumpship on short notice. I would love to give you a more refined timeline, but I have no idea when we will be back. But if/when we do come back this way. We will need to move one of those things, just like we did the scout."

Jess was looking at Robert, like he was a crazy man. He had just told her more information, than most of the dropship crew knew. She could have said something, but she kept her mouth shut. She could not come up with a counter argument to keep this data hidden.

Robert looked around the table. "Okay. I'm tracking that we have, two Armstrong's and one of the KWI's left to sell. If we cannot move them here? Then we might be able to move them at our last stop, before we start avoiding populations. I want everyone on alert, but make sure everyone gets their time in town. I just want them to be on more guard, than we have been doing. I want to be able to lift about two days early, if this is a dry well. Let's be about it."

It was two days later, and the three dropships were lifting off of the planet. As Lora had predicted. Every time they thought they had a seller or buyer lined up; something would change. It did not take but a few hours for word to get out, system wide. That ComStar was not happy with The Copeland Supply, Salvage and Resale Company. It did make it easier to pull most of the money out of the local bank, because the bank just wanted them out of the lobby.

It was a six day burn to the jump point, that thankfully was uneventful. They did not find any tracking devices in the little bit of cargo, that they had been able to pick up. The jump out of the star system was also without any issues, that they knew of. What they did not know, was that they were being trailed both overtly and covertly. One was a battered looking Union class dropship, and the other was something already at the jump point.

The other tracker was an Invader class jumpship, with a modified huge Mammoth class dropship attached to her spine. The huge cargo bays in the dropship were not filled with cargo of any kind. They were filled with a mass of electronic systems, that would be able to track a jumpship to whatever location it was going to. It was beyond cutting edge technology and well into bleeding edge technology, even for the pre-fall Star League. It was still in testing, and it had been rushed here only two days before from its nearby secret testing area. The theory was sound, but so far finding the equipment to do the job had been the issue.

It was going to be a wasted effort for ComStar, because Robert tells the Traffic Control at the jump point where they are going next. The bad part is, that he did not lie to them. In a flash of radiation and odd energy. Copeland and his people were gone, and almost in the same second. They were in the system they wanted to be in, 20 light years from their old location. Now they were in the same place, that they had started this mission, just before the new year.

 **Notes** :

 **ComStar's power**. It has the economic and monetary power to make life painful for something as small as Copeland's little band. They have the kind of power that could make life difficult for mega corporations and even major houses.

 **The butterfly's start**. As you see, they have started to flap their wings. MMM has gotten an infusion of tech, and it had to cost ComStar something to get MMM not to want a chance at getting more late SL tech weapons.

 **Aurigan Coalition** : I had no idea about this group, when I started this story. It does fit in nicely on how they field what they field for their weapons.

 **Prime Rom team**. Looks like they were not sent to retrain, but they were in the doghouse. Looks like someone is going to be owned an apology for not being believed in. it would take time to get them moved from the "interview" location to Dunianshire.


	22. Chapter 22 19 may 3047

**Chapter 22**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **19 May 3047**

 **Return to Ltzehoe.**

Robert was in his command chair as the wave of energy swept over them, and then just as quickly went away. There were very few people that could say that jumping did not bother them in some way. Robert made sure never to loan money to any who had made that statement, in public or in private meetings. Before he could ask, his question was answered. "Sir! We are in the Ltzehoe system, no alarms."

Robert smiled, but he did not undue his safety straps. "That is good to hear. Okay! Tell the engineering department to deploy the sail, whenever they are ready. Please contact local Traffic Control and let them know we are here. And that we will be taking one dropship, the White Rabbit to land at the main space port. I would also like to send a message to Duke Terry, and let her know that we are coming in."

Jules turned and looked at Robert. He leaned a little closer and spoke softly to his friend and commander. "Why just the Blockade Runner? I think it would be better to take all three ships, or maybe the same two vessels that you took last time we stopped by."

Robert looked at his second in command and friend. "You have a point. But with ComStar upset with us? I think our primary cargo hauler needs to be protected as best we can. We have spent a lot of time and effort getting her filled to the deck plates. She is even a little overloaded to make planetfall, with what we transferred over from the White Rabbit. You know if something goes south down there? You are in command. Our people need what we have collected."

He knew Jules did not like thinking about things like that. And he really did not like it, when Robert brought it up again. Robert knew this, about his friend. "Jules, I have planned on only taking one ship down when we got here. That is why I had the last of the autocannons and a few other items moved over to the Rabbit, a while ago. If we sell them, great! But if not? We will just leave them packed down for later."

Jules could see that Robert had put some thought into this move, and he was the commander. "Yes, Sir. Is Jess going with you again?"

Robert did not say anything, at first. He had not planned on taking his head of Intel down to a place they had visited before. It was not likely that they would find any new information, but then again. "Yes, I think that it's a good idea. I don't want someone from back home second guessing me, because of Duke Terry."

That was all the talking that needed to be done. Robert did make sure to visit all of the different shops or divisions on the jumpship. His last stop before boarding the White Rabbit, was the HPG section. That particular department in the jumpship had been working almost none stop. The only time someone was not working on the intercepted messages. It was when they were sleeping, or on a space station for some downtime. They would not know the payoff of their work, for a long time. Right now, all they did was read another person's mail. Robert had noticed that their morale was slipping lower over the last few weeks. There had not been any major breakthroughs after the codes used by MMM had been broken, and they were getting depressed with the lack of perceived progress.

By the time that Robert was settling into a small cabin on the dropship. They had been contacted with the landing clearance. Jess would be bunking in one of the Spartan passenger cabins, with two other women from other ships in the little fleet. Soon they were burning towards the planet at a steady 1 g, which was comfortable for crews and saved the engines from excessive damage. Robert like the feel of his normal weight returning, without needing to use the hamster wheel like gravity deck.

Five days later. The 3,200ton Blockade Runner dropship was descending threw the planet's atmosphere on a long pillar of red and orange plasma fire. As soon as it broke through the high clouds. The sensors told them that the drop port had changed since the last visit. It was not going to be the only dropship on the landing field this time.

A Union, Gazelle, and a small but battered Fury were spread out along the fire blasted landing field. The largest and most capable also looked to be the best maintained dropship in the area. Robert could not help but keep an eye on the Union. When these dropships were picked up on the White Rabbits systems, it had concerned Captain Copeland. That is until the transponders on the drop ships activated when the White Rabbit was still 60,000 feet in the air.

Robert had been remembering the warning that the Com Guards had space assets, when they picked up the first hint of the other dropships. These dropships were from mercenary units, which Copeland had found out were working for the MC a month before Bivouac. They had been all over the news sheets about the raids and counter piracy missions, which they had been conducting for almost a year now.

The Trojan Class dropship was still topping its fuel tanks off, when Duke Terry contacted them to set up a dinner with her that night. She also passed along word that she would like to have a business meeting with Captain Copeland, and up to two escorts. The first meeting was expected, but the last one was strange enough that both Jess and Robert were trying to work out what it might be about. It was just at 6 pm, when a very nonstandard sedan pulled up to the landing legs of the dropship. It was their ride to the dinner at Duke Terry's official residence.

Jess, Robert, and Terry were sitting at a private dinner. They started with small talk, but soon Jess was able to turn it around. She just could not help it. "So, Terry. How are your projects going, since we left?"

The planetary Duke put her fork down, and she was almost beaming at the question. She had been waiting for the right time to do a little bragging to her guest. "They are going well. I don't mind letting you know. That we are up and running on supplying ammunition, new and reloaded rounds for the class five type autocannon. We have been supplying it to the Com Guards for some time now. And now that word has gotten out to the bigger universe. We are a stopping off point for a lot of military units on this end of space, who need ammunition resupply. It has been bringing in more money, than I could have hoped for this time last year. Enough profit has come in so far. That I have been able to get the Militia's Tank Company fully repaired." She was very proud of what she had been able to do in the less than seven months, which had passed.

Robert was smiling. "That is good news, and I'm glad to hear it. How did the Armstrong's we sold you do? And what about that one that the farmer bought off of us. How did that one turn out?

Duke Terry was still smiling. "That deal worked out pretty good. I was able to sell the one, which I had split the price on, to a mech unit that landed a few weeks after you lifted off. I think your referring to the one cannon, which the rancher bought. It turns out, that he had an old 50ton Vedette tank in one of his barns. He got it fixed up, all on his own dime, and when he could get someone out there to work on it. I think the cannon was the last major piece that he needed. Then the crazy old coot drove it threw town, to show it off. It's back at his ranch, now. I will say, that he has been helping with alerts with that thing."

She gave a chuckle. "He has been buying ammunition from the factory, whenever he can afford a ton of it to be delivered out to his place. I think he is setting up his own little stockpile, or he is spending a lot of time on a private weapons range."

Jess noticed that Terry had left something out. She shot a look at Captain Copeland and made eye contact. Robert caught the look, but he did not want to put the local leader in a bind. Robert then raised his eyebrows. "And your little message, when we were getting ready to leave?"

Duke Terry looked around. She had not planned to talk about that right now, but it was not exactly a secret among the locals. In fact, some of her people had taken to calling it Terry's Folly. "It's coming along, slowly. It's hard to get mech parts this far out, on any kind of a regular schedule. The Armstrong was a great help."

Both Jess and Robert smiled a set of toothy grins. Robert bit his lip a little, but he had a little glint in his eyes. "I might be able to help, a little more. That type of project is not that easy of a hobby to find parts for. But over our travels the last few months. I have found some odds and ends, which might be helpful."

Terry was looking at Robert, but her face gave nothing away. She was happy about the mech parts, if she could get them at a good price. The opening was something, which she had hoped to happen. Only she was a little surprised, that it was happening this soon. There was something she wanted to know. Now seemed like a good time to push.

"You have been busy little bees. I will have to see if I can afford, what you were able to pick up. We have heard about some of your travels, out this way over the last few months. A friend of mine happened to be around a month or so ago. She said, that you were trying to raise the tech base for the entire Inner Sphere all by yourself. You were supposed to have been sprinkling real Star League grade cannons and high-end computers to anyone with the cash to get some of them."

She looked down her nose at him, but one corner of her mouth was turned up. "Robert it would have been nice, if you would have offered those to me instead of the older weapons." The tone was light, and she was waiting to hear what he had to say to her comment. She did not think that he had intentionally given her the shaft on that weapons sale.

Robert had been paying attention to not only what she was saying, but how she was saying it. If you did not catch the tone, those words might have sent him running for the door. He put his fork down and looked at the woman levelly in the eyes. "I didn't think you would have enough money, to buy them. I was hoping to get close to a million on each of those weapons, when we started this mission. As it turns out, we were dreaming. We were forced to start scattering out what we had found. If you put too much on the market at one time? The price goes way down, and they cost us a lot. If you're still interested? I do have one left and two of the older style cannons, which I am willing to sell. I wonder how my favorite ComStar crazy will take that bit of news?" He was not planning on telling her about the little visit/meeting with someone connected to that organization.

Terry could not stop a smile from showing on her face. "I was thinking as much, when I heard the second or third report about the Star League tech cannons hitting the local markets. And they were all connected somehow to you. I happen to agree, with you. I could have a few older style cannons or one maybe two of the newer ones, at the higher prices. It would have still been that way, even at the lower price that I heard you were able to pull down. That brings me to the reason for the meeting tomorrow. It would seem, that some of the local mercenary units have heard about you burning in, and what you have done around the MC. They contacted me, as fast as the Rumor Mill turns. Somehow, they found out that I might be able to set up a meeting for them. And that maybe I could put in a good word for them. They want to see if you had anything for sale, weapon wise. I don't think that they are looking for a logistical computer."

She gave a soft chuckle. "I told them, that you might not have anything to sell to them. I get a fee from each of them, just for setting up the meeting. I hope you don't mind." She raised an eyebrow at the man.

Jess snorted loudly, and when all of the eyes at the table turned to her. "That was smart, very smart. You get a little something, even if we did not have what they were hoping that we had. Where you able to tell them, how we like to do transactions?"

Terry looked towards Jess and nodded up and down, but she quickly was back looking at Robert. "I did, but they are short on cash. They do have Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission prepaid cards. Those things are backed by ComStar, so they are as good as cash. As for our favorite pain of a ComStar Demi-Precentor? He has been hiding in his compound since word was sent, that you were back in system. I think he was a little surprised, upset, and maybe a little scared for some reason to find out you had showed up at the jump point." Terry shot a look at Robert and Jess. She was fishing, but she had very good bait.

Jess's mind leaped back to the attack by that pirate dropship. Robert's mind went to the first problem they had run into on this trip. That was the attempted break in, of one of their ships. Robert could see, that Terry had picked up something that was caused by her comment. He did not want Terry to start actively fishing. "We had some issues, on our trip. It was nothing that we couldn't handle, but. I think my good Demi might have been behind most of it, if not all of it. One of these days. I'm going to have to show him, how much we truly appreciate him." Robert could feel the heat in his own tone, but he had meant every word, and then some. He would dearly love to meet up with a certain ComStar man near a dark alley.

The rest of the evening was nice with small talk and news passed between them. Jess was keeping as detailed mental notes as she could, because of the report she was going to write up. Robert knew the rules, about getting what seemed like too close to someone from off planet. It was around midnight, when they were able to make it back to the grounded dropships.

The last thing was to arrange a change of the meeting location. The original meeting area, which Terry had set up was going to be held in one of the meeting rooms at the drop port. Now the meeting would be held at the foot of the White Rabbit, but at the same time. Duke Terry would make sure that everyone would know about the change of location, and that Captain Copeland had three weapons systems for inspection and sale to anyone with the funds.

At noon the next day, a group of a dozen people arrived in a mix bag of transports. About the only thing the transports had in common, was that they all were military grade. The Captain of the White Rabbit and his Cargo Master were handling this sale. The prices were well known by what was reported on some of the industry sheets, about what they had sold other weapons for on the different worlds. Robert was surprised how accurate some of those information sheets were. Granted they were between one and four months old, and they only covered the major world's weapon sales.

The price was set, and after inspection. The Major that was from the Union picked up the KWI ultra, and one each of the Armstrong's went to the two other dropships. Robert and Terry were sitting on some field chairs talking and having some local made cold drinks. Then the Alarms went off all around the drop port, and in the nearby militia buildings. It was not a nice way to interrupt a relaxing day.

Duke Terry's personal communication device started beeping, at almost the same second that the alarms started screaming around them. Robert was lucky the device was on speaker mode, so he could hear what was going on. His people were going to alert status as the military cargo trucks stop loading, and their commanders reached for handheld radios.

A young voice came over the speaker. "Duke Terry! This is Traffic Control. We have a large jumpship coming in on the zenith point! It's still 180 seconds out. All we know is that it's big, carrying a lot of dropships, and it did a good-sized jump before coming here. We do not have a schedule due-in to the Zenith. The next due-in is 24 days out, at best. Even then, she is a merchant class jumper coming in at the Nadir point."

Terry looked up at Robert, and then pushed her button to talk. "Stay on the line and let me know when you have more information. As the worst case? We will use this as a drill for our defense forces."

Robert looked around the drop port, but he did not see anything taking off. His digital tablet was displaying about the same information, which he had heard from port traffic control being giving to the Duke. It was a long three minutes, while they waited for the new visitor to fully arrive. When the voice came back over Terry's device, it was confused.

"Duke, the ComStar people are refusing to leave their compound to go into Plan Able's defensive positions. I now read the jumper, as an Invader class ship. It's going to be a while, before we can have a radio reply. I sent the greeting on auto, as soon as we detected a craft coming into that area. I had it sent as soon as we detected the emergence wave."

This jumpship was on the other side of the system, from the Styx at the Nadir point. Soon all six fighters would be launching into space, if Robert knew Jules at all. "Terry? You don't have any aero fighters, do you?"

Terry, the planetary leader had a look that was a little crest fallen. "No. I'm planning on getting a pair of them. It was going to be as soon as I can afford to have a medium weight mech lance in the field. I just don't have the funds to buy both lances, yet"

Robert could tell that she was frustrated. He reached over and patted her arm. "I know what you mean. I have listed the White Rabbit for sale since day one, but no one had the capital to buy it. Money on that scale, is tight. I know that I almost tapped you, by just selling those few cannons. I hope those parts we traded for, will help you out with your JagerMech." He gave a smile, which was just a bit off. "I know that I will not be able to use that stuff at my next stop."

Terry snorted at Roberts comment. "Robert, 40 tons of meat and 40 tons mix of near cotton and wool to get 20 tons of mixed mech parts? That is a hell of a deal. For me, that is. I saw a life-support system, and a left foot in the crate. Both of those, I know I can use." She also thought that she saw some plates of preformed armor, but she was not going to bring that up.

Robert did not say anything, and he took a fake sip of his drink. He was saved from a social mistake as Terry's speaker started going off again. "Duke, this is Traffic Control. We have an invader class jumpship going by the name of Dawn's Tears. They say that they are just passing through our system, on a mission for the MC government. They will be leaving, as soon as they have charged up there jump drive again. We are not detecting any dropship launches. Would you like me to send the stand down order for our defenses?"

Robert made a sour face. He remembered that there had been a strange Invader with only one dropship that had showed up at Dunianshire. It was strange to have a three-seater only carrying a single dropship, to the locally major shipping center. Terry noticed the face Robert had made, and that was enough for her to decide how she was going to get an answer to that question.

"No but change the alert status to a drill. Also have the military commander make sure that he has a full load of ammunition on his assets. Let me know, if anything changes. But keep a close eye on them. If they launch a dropship? I want to know about it, before we send out the planet wide alert again." She cut the line and tilted her head. "You know something, Robert?" She could read the man, as long as he was not putting on his salesmen persona.

Robert was holding his tongue, then changed his mind. "I was thinking. We had an Invader class jumpship near us at Dunianshire. When we left, after closing our dealings with MMM. They were still charging their drives. I just find it odd, that a ship that large, would just show up here. And so, soon after we got here ourselves. I think we might need to be moving sooner than I had planned, just to be on the safe side." Robert found that he was not looking forward to leaving early.

Terry did not say anything at first. She was surprised at how much she did not want this man to leave. She had not felt like this, in a long time. Her voice cracked a little, when she finally did say something. "I understand. You have to look after your people. Do you know when you might be back out this way?" Terry's heart did a little flutter, again. She had to fight to put a clamp on that. She was the leader of this system. She could not just have a relationship, not after the last three had fallen apart so publicly.

Robert heard her voice crack and he felt something to, but he did not know what it was. Right now, he could not afford to act on it. After all, you did not fall for someone while you were on a secret mission for what was left of the Star League. That was only something you saw in a holovid. "I have no idea. I have to take care of this cargo. I can tell you, that I would like to come back. But I can't promise it, if the cargos don't line up that way." He was falling back onto his cover story, as an interstellar merchant. And the words tasted like ashes, in his mouth.

Terry was about to cross the line, when her aid came walking up to them. "Duke we have a problem, and they need you back at the house."

Terry nodded and rose from the folded chairs. Then she leaned down and planted one right on the lips of Robert. "I hope you come back this way, sailor." She made her voice a little sultry and gave Robert a wink.

Robert watched her walking away, a little weak in the knees. Jess joined him at the field table, and they both watched the autocannons being moved to their new homes. They had stopped rushing around, after the alert was downgraded to a drill. About an hour later. Robert's crew used two large cargo movers, to help load up the two cargo containers. They were from Duke Terry as her payments for the spare parts, which Robert had collected for her out of his own pocket.

By midnight they were lifting off from the drop port, right on time for their announced updated departure time. All of the R and R teams had returned, after reporting tails. Nothing happened to any of the groups, as they walked or road around the town outside of the drop port. But it made the R and R teams uncomfortable, so they had returned. It was kind of hard to rest and relax, if you were being closely watched by strangers.

They were three hours off planet, when Duke Terry sent a highly detailed image of the Invader sitting at the other jump point. You could clearly see that it had a Mammoth class dropship, along with a Union and an Intruder class of dropships on her collars. It was a very detailed image, which showed what looked like three new built ships out of four that were sitting at the jump point. That many new built dropships, was a very rare thing to see this deep into the Periphery. The only thing that would have stood out more, would have been if they were carrying an Overlord or a Vengeance. Then again, a Mammoth was very rare to see out here.

Robert did not send the image to the Styx, via a highly encrypted radio transmission the dropship could. He would wait and give a physical higher resolution copy to the brain team, when he docked in a few days. It was one more piece in a lot larger puzzle, he could feel it. Robert and Jess stayed off of the bridge of the dropship, for the rest of the run back out to the nadir jump point. They had a lot of reports to write, and they wanted to do it while the information was still fresh in their minds.

As soon as the smaller ship had docked to the larger one. The bridge notified Copeland and Jess that they were needed on the jumpship's command center, as soon as they could. This was odd enough that the two went straight to the command center, without taking care of their personal things. As soon as the hatch to the bridge of the Styx opened up. Robert floated in with Jess at his feet, coming as rapidly as she could. Jules's head had snapped around towards the movement of the airtight hatch, as it had started to move.

Robert saw the head snap, toward him. That was odd enough to cause Robert to note and speak, before he was in the deck mounted slippers or his chair. "Okay, XO. I'm here! What's going on?" Robert was breathing heavier than he should, and he made a note to spend more time on the gym in the jumpship.

Jules let out a little breath and floated toward the command chair, which belonged to Captain Copeland. "Sir, it's that jumpship at the Zenith point. We were keeping an eye on it, but it would take a week to get a fighter down there, to put any eyes on them. All we could do was listen to their radio and other transmissions, but that is when things went sideways. We picked up an HPG transmission coming from the jumpship!"

Robert kept floating and he coasted to his chair. "A ship mounted HPG. Besides, our people, and the clans. That leaves only ComStar with that kind of technology. Could one of the Houses have recovered it?"

Robert was playing a little devil's advocate. As soon as his friend had said HPG. His mind went straight to ComStar. They had recovered an HPG on one of two ComStar run Magellan's his people had captured. It would not take long for SLIC to work out the Electronic Signature, from the data the Styx had been able to collect. Robert would bet his next paycheck, that the signature would match the one on file for the Pheidippiles.

Jess was just sliding into a set of deck slippers, beside the commander's chair. This was as much news to her, as it was to the convoy commander. She was just standing opened mouth. Jules made eye contact with her and kept talking to Robert. "I thought of that. And the decoding room said it looks like the same coding system, which they picked up at Dunianshire. It was used by the ComStar station there. They are 90 percent sure of this fact, by looking at the raw data."

Jess looked slowly left and right at the two senior officers. "Dunianshire? The code was there, an Invader class was there. Sir, did you get a good look at the Invader before we left? Does this one look familiar?" Jess passed over the dozen page sized images that Duke Terry had sent them while they had been in transit, but still very close to the planet.

Jules furrowed his brow and look closely at each of the images. He quickly flipped through the images over and over again. "Good images. They must have a nice bit of glass down there, to get something like these. The Invader looks the same, but a lot of them do. She was not sporting any livery that we could see."

He stopped talking and looked at one image, and then passed that one image over to Captain Copeland. "Robert, would you look at this. The Mammoth is in the same location, as it was when we saw it in the last system. Look at where it is on the spine? It would be better for when they deploy the jump sail, if it was on the middle collar not on the aft. You always want to put your smallest dropship on the aft most collar. In an Invader? You would put the smallest dropship on the forward one, because of the hydroponics pods. Then the next smallest dropship would be put on the aft one. That is jumpship operation 101. I remember that the other Invader had the Mammoth on the aft collar, just like this one is doing."

Robert looked around the group, and he could see the shoulders of the people around the bridge. Things had just gone sideways. "Okay. It looks like the robed nuts want to try to follow us home. What is the status of both jump engines?" This was not the first time or even the dozenth time that someone had tried to follow a supply run back to New Circe.

Jules went into briefing mode. "We are ready to jump, as soon as the White Rabbit reports ready to jump and the K-F boom is locked down. The Colonial engine has not been spun up. Our orders say not to use it, when it might be noticed."

Robert looked at his XO, but he did not put any bite into his next words. "Yes, Jules. I just need to know what my options are. How long would it take, after were clear of this system, to have it ready to use again. I also need to know how long, until Mr. Invader is ready to jump again." Robert's mind was working overtime, as he came up with a few ideas on how to ditch this tail.

Jules nodded and turned red a little. He had crossed a line, but it was his job to make sure the orders from higher were carried out. "I think we could have the Colonial engine checked out and ready to go, in five or six hours. That is, if we don't run into any issues that might need to be fixed. The Invader would need another day or two to charge up his K and F, unless he tries a quick charge. There is no way to know if they had done that, are not. The heat plumes are about the only thing that we can look for, to see if they are running their reactor hard to quick charge. We have not seen that, but I would not bet against it one way or the other."

Robert nodded then pitched his voice lower, so that it would not carry. "Okay Jules. This is what we are going to do." Robert talked for a few minutes, and Jules face was white as a sheet when he floated out of the bridge.

Six hours after the blockade runner docked with the Tramp Class jumpship. The Jumpship was gone from this system. It reappeared at a system that was just three stars without any planets going around it. It was a lonely area of space, which was 28 light years from the system Duke Terry was in control of. No humans had called this place home, and only rarely had human eyes seen it from one of its jump points. It was a very quick and ugly seven hours that followed.

The jump sails were not let out. But the crew found a dozen spy devices, and they were dumped into space. The massive fusion engine mounted on the aft part of the jump ship, was brought up to full power. It was going to supply the ship with life sustaining power, and power to the jump engine in what was called a fast charge. While the normal jump engine was being charged. The Colonial built engine was slowly spun up and checked out, by their specialized support staff. It passed all checks, but the last test was to actually use it to move the ship many light years at one time.

7 hours and 22 minutes after the Styx had arrived into this lonely part of space, it was ready. That was 84 hours faster, than it should have been able to leave. It was gone again on another jump across interstellar space. This one jump was exactly 30 light years in distance. When it popped into "normal" space again? It was not near a star, but it was in the deep black of space that was lost between the stars.

Fast charging a jump engine was not something to be taken lightly. All of the Engineer Department on the Jumpship had objected to the order, but they had followed it in the end. Now that they were out of sight from unwanted eyes, the K-F drive was powered down and put into storage mode. The Colonial drive activated two hours after coming into this location in the space between the stars, and the Styx was moved 15 light years again in the blink of an eye.

When the Styx appeared in space again? She was at the Zenith point of a G5 star that was too close to a Brown dwarf, to have any life-giving planets. Again, this system had not one living being, to see what had come to visit them. The Styx would spend the next dozen hours here. This was to let the engineer teams have a chance to check on both types of engines for any damage, that the last day of traveling had given them. If the Colonial drive is cleared for more operations? They will plot out two more jumps, to close out the day's travel plans. If they were not safe? They would stay in this system and work on them. As it turned out? They did not need to fix anything.

They would have covered more distance, before they would need to let the engine cool down for a few hours. They had already moved a longer distance than a jumpship should have been able to do in a day. They had beat the record, by a factor of four times the travel distance. If anyone was following them? They would have to have some technology that the SLDF or the Clans had never heard of, or could find a reference to. It would be even harder for anyone to follow them, after the second day of traveling using just the Colonial made drive.

 **Notes:**

 **The speed of rumor**. Even without using an HPG to spread the word. News of someone selling a cache of high tech or Lostech weapons would spread. It might not even be true, and it still would fly around the whole stellar group.

 **Industry sheets**. Think of them being like Jane's defense Weekly, Airforce Monthly, or Defensionem-The WarBible. There are dozens of them.

 **Entrance wave, Or E-wave.** This Emergence Signature always comes first. It is determined by the total mass of the Jumpship and all attached Dropships. The EMP is detectable over billions of KMs, and I pulled it out of one of the books.

 **Mercenary board pre-paid cards.** Why did the Scout not use them? They are backed by ComStar, just like the review board. The Scout's Captain did not want to leave any breadcrumbs pointing back to ComStar. It was just something I made up.


	23. Chapter 23 25 Aug 3047

**Chapter 23**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

 **25 Aug 3047**

 **New Circe.**

In the deep black of space, an energy wave alerted this hidden system that someone was coming. In that few seconds of warning given to the defenders. A pair of jump fighters disappear in a flash and reappear, at the old-style jump point. They would get there just 2 seconds, after the long and old Tramp jumpship had fully arrived into the system. The rapid response of the alert crew was a testament to their skills and since of duty.

Before the SLS Styx could radio, via HPG, that they were friendly. A dozen armed Raptors were popping into space near the long ship, to join the two 100ton ones that were already there. Robert made a note, that next time? They would be allowed to send a HPG message, before they came into the nebula and not after they made it all of the way home.

The longer the Styx was at the jump point. The more her powerful radar was seeing that some things had changed. The jump point was completely empty of, well stuff. The old station that had been there for generations made from an old jumpship, which had been deemed as no longer useful for the clan. Even that mass of metal was now missing. All of the old style jumpships, that had been left at this location for any future need. All of them were gone. That did not mean, that the Styx was alone. Robert was looking around at all of the radar contacts zipping around the local area.

Robert looked over from the radar display to a position that was along the far wall. "Comms, have we had a reply?"

The comms station operator did some checks. "Sir, no reply has been received via the HPG section. Do you want me to send a regular speed of light radio message?"

Captain Copeland and Lt Jules Vaun were looking at each other, when the comm station interrupted them, before they could give an additional order one way or the other. "Sir! An HPG is in coming." The Communications station was quiet as the information went first to the HPG team, and then was uploaded into the ship's other systems. When it was done, the data was ready for the bridge operator to relay the message.

"We are to hold station and prepared to be boarded. We are ordered to be under quarantine, until cleared. We are advised that lethal force has been authorized threw out the quarantine time." The tone was bewildered, and it matched the look on his face. Robert and Jules shot each other questioning looks. This was a first, and something like this had not been done on any other supply run that Copeland could remember.

Robert looked at Jules who shrugged his shoulders. It was Robert's call, and it was his name on the blame line. "Comms reply, via HPG. Tell them. That we have full bays, and that we will need to launch our pair of small craft to make room for the inspectors. Make sure you tell them that we are not moving, and all of our weapons are powered down. Jules, please pass along that order to all dropships. I want them prepared for boarding, under full quarantine rules. Let the staff know, that we will let them know as soon as we know anything."

As was expected, by Robert. They did not receive another message for hours, after their reply had been sent to the HPG station on the planet. Robert and Jules only had to field questions from each of the dropships once. Each of the command crews on those three smaller ships had a good guess on the amount of firepower that was currently flying around them.

It was six hours later, and about time for shift change, when they were joined at the old jump point by a ship that was almost the same length as the Styx. Robert and Jules knew that their supply run would be a major political nuclear weapon, when the Colonials found out about it. That was why Robert was not that surprised. That they were being put on the back burner, for now. If things did not work out, by the time he returned to his duty shift? He was planning to take a more active approach to the problem. He was not going to let his people be left out in the cold.

Those thoughts went out the air lock, when the Radar and tracking section called out to the bridge in a very frantic voice. "Sir! Contact! It just showed up on the energy wave detector! She is squawking, that she is the Yukon. Frak! We are being hit with a lot of energy."

Now that they were back in the home system. The rules for speaking had been relaxed, so Captain Copeland did not say a word about the use of a Colonial based word. He had expected that one or two of the smaller modified dropships would be sent out to them. Now that the heavily modified Riga class Destroyer was off his ship's nose? Now he was a little more nervous.

The Yukon had been the smallest of the Clan Wolverines operational interstellar capable warships. That had been before the coming of the Colonials. But her small sized did not mean, that she was a push over. The Tramp would be so much ash in the wind, if the warship went tactical on her. She would not even need to launch her heavy fighter load to get that job done.

Both Robert and Jules stayed on the bridge of the Styx, while the warship moved down one side of the jumpship and then it went over the top of them. The entire time, the Styx was being hit with all kinds of Radar, DRADIS, and something that none of the tracking crew could work out what it was. No one on the bridges of any of the returning ships knew exactly what the warship was looking for, but they thought that they had a good idea of the types of things they were looking for. At the 120 minutes mark. The supply run flagship was raised on the short-ranged radio, by the warship that now was back to sitting off the nose of the Styx.

Over the large built in speakers of the old Tramp, came a strong but younger sounding voice. "Styx Actual. This is Yukon Actual. You have been gone for some time, and some rules have changed while you were away. We were checking your ships for any trackers that might be active, passive, or activated by certain wave energies. We also were checking for anything that might be a threat, and somehow was infiltrated on to your ships. The good news is that we have not picked up anything like that on our active, passive, and visual scans. Now for the painful part. It is, that we will be checking every member of your crew. Query-Affirmative Styx Actual?"

Robert flipped a switch on his armrest. "Yukon Actual. This is Styx Actual. I copy that Phase One is done, and that Phase Two is not going to be fun. What is Phase Two? And how can my people help you, so that we can get our feet on the ground to feel real gravity and the wind again?" Robert had just transmitted in the open and not encrypted, so that each dropship's bridge would also know what was going on.

The voice was lighter now, but it was still fully in business mode. "Styx Actual, you are correct. I want your two small craft to depart with minimal crew, and land on my ship. They will be checked out on my end, but while we are doing that. Four Raptor class craft will dock and turn your two small craft bays into their base camp. They are going to go through every compartment and test every person. If someone resist? They will be taken down…hard. The same will happen to any stowaways, as the first step. I hope we do not need to worry about step two, Query-Affirmative."

Robert was nodding, as the voice told them about the next phase. Jules picked up a second device, and passed along the directions to the jumpship's crew, and the attached dropships at the same time. When Jules was done? He gave Robert a look and showed that the other device was off. He wanted to ask a question, and with a nod from his oldest friend he asked.

"Yukon Actual. You're looking for Cylons….Query-Affirmative?" Jules had a slight problem going back into speaking "normally" again, and the last part of his statement had taken a few seconds to be added.

It took a few minutes for a reply to come back over the short-ranged radio. "Styx. We are looking for a lot of things. The Cylons have picked up a few new tricks, since you left. I am not going to tell you exactly what we are doing, and how. Query-Affirmative, you understand security and why things are done that way, commander."

The warship's Captain was not going to tell anyone, about the interviews that would be taking place on some of the crew. Anyone that had even passing contact with this Isaac Nelson, was not going to have a good day. Getting the files together, had been the main reason for the delay and getting the Yukon out this way. If there was any question in the interviewer's mind? That person would be put into the warship's brig, until they were transferred over to SLIC. Finding a ROM agent on New Circe was still special compartment access only information. The warship's Captain had only been "read on", when his ship had been tasked to "Quarantine" the returning resupply mission. He still was having problems getting his mind wrapped around the idea. He was going to make sure that something like that would not happen again, not while on his watch.

Robert was starting to hate this counterintelligence crap, but he did understand why it was being done. About a million lives depending on it to work was all of the reasons he needed. "Roger Yukon Actual. Do I need to send you my reports Query-Affirmative?"

The sound of a light laugh came over the radio, to start the Destroyer Captain's reply. "Negative Styx. Just like I know things, which you do not need to know. You know things that I do not need to know. Please hold those reports, until asked by higher authority for them. I am only here to make sure you are good to go."

Captain Copeland ordered the two small craft crews to launch the Mark VII landing craft. When the two small craft landed on the fighter carrying Destroyer. Four Colonial made Raptor craft were coming out of her lunch bays on the other side of the warship. The small Colonial designed craft were not armed, with external weapons. It would have been more than a little redundant considering the number of 100ton fighters flying around the local area of space, along with the other armed one- and two-man craft. Two Raptors made for each of the small craft bays on the long jumpship. They were not breaking any speed records, but they were not dragging their feet.

As soon as the small craft bay doors closed on the hull of the jumpship, and the atmosphere in each area was safe to use. The bay was filled with two dozen people, all in thin Colonial made spacesuits. They went about their tasks of converting the area of the small craft bay, into their short-term command posts. They did not communicate with the convoy commander, or anyone else on the jumpship. One second the hatch from the small craft bays were locked and the windows covered, and the next. Ten teams of two people, all still in space suits, started walking/floating down the corridors of the jumpship.

As the ship's crew had been warned by the fleet commander. The two person teams went into every room, and every person was scanned by some kind of device that looked to be testing DNA and who knew what else. Once a room was checked and passed the strange inspection. It was locked, by attaching an alarm strip. They were like the ones that the law enforcement department had been using for a few centuries now. It took two hours for the teams to make their way to the aft most part of the jumpship and then back to the nose.

The inspection crew had very little communications with anyone. The faceplates on the suits were mirrored, so the crew had no idea who was inside the suits. After the team of two persons left the bridge of the jumpship and the crew was still closing up some of the panels, that the inspectors had wanted opened. The senior enlisted man on the jumpship was impressed with how thorough the inspection was being. They had found two hidden areas that he had not known about. They had been empty, but he made a note to check those areas in the future.

The inspection teams returned to the small craft bays. Robert was starting to worry, about the lack of communications between the inspectors and his crew. They had not started up the big fusion plant, when they had arrived into the New Circe system. They were on emergency batteries, and they were getting a little too low for his comfort. They were only intended for emergency use, after all. Jules was looking at the same numbers Robert was, and had just opened his mouth to say something. What he was about to say? They now never would know.

Over the speaker on the bridge, a new voice came over the short-ranged radio. "Styx Actual, this is Yukon. The inspection and quarantine teams report that the SLS Styx is clean. Do not allow anyone from a non-cleared dropship to enter your vessel. If that happens? The inspection teams will have to start all over again on your vessel." The voice on the other end just stopped talking.

Jules picked up the mic and pushed a side mounted button at his station. The person on the other end was not the warship's Captain, and they were not using proper SLDF communication protocols. This made the alarm bells ring in both men, and that alarm was saying Star League intelligence. "Yukon. This is the Styx, wilco." Wilco was slang for we will comply, and it had been used for centuries.

The next communication was an inter-ship one on hard lines. It was between the jumpship Styx and the dropship Hobgoblin. It was to inform Captain Copeland and the flagship bridge. That a few of the inspection teams had entered his ship via the interconnecting hatch between jumpship and dropship without warning. It would not take long, for the ten teams to check every inch of the 70-meter-long modified fighter carrier.

It took only an hour, before Captain Copeland was notified by the Yukon. That the Modified Leopard Carrier Class jump light carrier was cleared, and that the same rules would apply if anyone violated the seals on the hatches. The separation between the time of the contact from the SLS Yukon, and when the contact had come in from the Hobgoblin, was only ten minutes apart. This was a sign of how professional the inspection team was. Ten minutes was about the time it would take for a person to fast pull themselves from that drop collar to the small craft bay.

The next dropship to get the mass visit of inspection teams, was at the other end of the long jumpship. The blockade runner sent word about the visitors, as soon as the main hatch near the K-F boom was opened. The Trojan class had a small crew complement for its size, at least when compared to the Leopard class carrier. It did have a lot larger cargo area, which would need to be gone through by the inspectors. Even with zero g to help with moving items around. It was not going to be a quick task to clear the ship.

It was half an hour longer, before Robert and Jules were told it was clear. The whole bridge was told that the second dropship was cleared, and now the jumpships crew could be allowed access to the other inspected ships. The last ship to get inspected, was the larger Mule class Lisbon Maru. She had a larger crew, and a lot more cargo spaces that had to be checked. When Robert and Jules read the report about the start of the inspection on that craft. Both men shared a smile along with the NCO of the jumpship. That job was going to fall into "Well this job really sucks" category.

Four hours later, word was sent that all ships were clear and clean. The number of fighter sized craft started to dwindle, even before Captain Copeland had been given the word that the last support ship for his fleet had been cleared of whatever they were looking for. Jess had thought that the number of "fighters" dropping had been due to the crews needing to be replaced. Jess was very happy to be proven wrong.

Robert and Jules were in the massive turning gravity producing deck's gym, when they got the word about the Mule. They had to spend a lot of time there, to preserve their health. The two officers were still there, when a member of the HPG team made her way to the workout room. The tech visibly stumbled when they entered the 140m diameter Gravity deck. The deck had been bumped up to 1.15gs for those wanting a harder workout.

"Sir, we have a message from traffic control. They sent us coordinates and require us to be there in less than two hours. They say that if this is an issue? You are to contact them, with the reason for the delay or other issues."

Jules was smiling, as he let the barbell down into its locking holder. "Well, Robert. It looks like we are closer to being home."

Robert was also smiling, but he remembered how much work they had still to do. Before the mission was wrapped up and they could go home, the paperwork had to be done. "You know that it just means. That now, it looks like we will have a little longer shift. Let the team in Engineering know to spin up the Colonial drive. I bet we are going to the L1. Make sure that the boards are clear, before anyone is given leave for home."

Robert wiped the sweat off his arms, and as he put the towel into the bin. He looked towards the HPG Tech. "Let them know, that we will make their schedule, and pass the coordinates to the bridge."

A little over an hour later. The Styx was in orbit over the life-giving planet at the L1 location, that Robert had thought they might be heading. Robert won the last bet on the betting board. He had picked that they would not be able to land on the planet, until at least one full duty shift or more after arriving. He had picked that on the way back home, when the idea was posted by someone else in the fleet. Traffic Control said that they were not ready for the dropships to land. They were given a time, which was a full day after showing up in orbit over the planet. The mission did not have a set date to end, and since they were not able to send an HPG message. The ground side support was not fully ready for Copeland to arrive, even after the half day delay at the old-style jump point.

What had surprised Robert was the second message that the Flagship had been sent, a few hours after the first message. They were told that there was another change in plans, not long after they shut down their jump engines. Everything would need to come off the jumpship. The jump sail was already deployed for power for the simple reason, that the jump ship was now very short on fuel. This last change was something that was not covered in the pre-mission reports and SOP's.

Every bit of food and all of the extra parts were inventoried and packed into the pair of small craft's 67ton cargo bays, that were coming in very handy. Jess and Robert were directed to send their reports, as soon as the Styx was stable at the L1 point. They had been ready for days, to file those reports. So, as soon as they were directed to file them. The digital reports were transmitted to the pair of their supervisors at the speed of light.

Early the next day was quiet, and the landing counters slowly worked their way to zero. Traffic Control contacted them one hour out, to give the final approval of the orders for the dropship's descent flight plan. They were all cleared to land at the main drop port on the planet, but the assigned landing location was at the very edge of the landing area.

Again, Robert was not surprised by this request or maybe order was the better title. It was the area that was normally used, when a supply run's cargo ships had started to return to dirtside. It had been set up to handle a dozen cargo dropships at a time. It was well guarded and had a huge housing combination warehouse, which was built almost fort like. The unloading of just over 10,000 tons of cargo, was taken out of the dropship's captain's hands. And even Captain Copeland would not be allowed near any of the items that had been in the cargo bays. They were only allowed to unload their light gear and personal effects.

This cargo handling task was taken over by a special set of stevedores, which had been training for this event for the last six months. It was a small group of stevedores that had been trained by an older generation on what they had learned. It would take a long time to get the cargo handling done as they compared the inventory they had been sent, versus what they were pulling off the dropships. The crews were off loaded off the dropships and landing craft and housed in a special housing unit. It was not far from the offloading ships.

It took three days for the Jumpship to be shut down, and the items and extra crew where transferred to ground side. It also took three days for the three dropships to be emptied of supplies and crew. Final payouts from the sale of the cargo would be in fits and spurts, for the foreseeable future. Not one pound of cargo had been put out for sale yet. It did not take long for over 90 percent of the crew to be allowed to go home from the temporary hotel set up for them. The only ones that were left were the ones that had more to say to higher command. They were mainly the Captains and XOs of all the ships, there was also Jess and the entire HPG team still living in the hotel.

The HPG team was still currently working, only they were now in larger rooms' groundside. And it had even grown in number, of those specialists working on that task. When Robert and Jess were eating lunch in the "hotel", a runner called out their names. They both had messages from the same person, Commander Xi. She was coming down in a few hours, and she needed to talk to them in debriefing room four. Jules was in another room, ready to receive his own grilling at the same time Jess and Robert would be receiving theirs.

A few hours later, Jess and Robert were in the debriefing room waiting when Commander Xi entered the room. She was carrying a thick looking briefcase, which was very out of place with her uniform. She took a seat on the other side of the desk from the two recently returned naval officers. She pulled out a paper folder, a noteputor, and put them on the tabletop in just the right places. Now that she was ready, she smiled at the two.

"Robert, Jess great job on your successful supply run. I will say that your return was a surprise, and not only to Traffic Control. I was not expecting you, for another three months or so. Command and the brain trust sitting above my paygrade, did not expect you to be back for another six months." She was smiling, but it did not reach her eyes as she looked across the table.

Robert knew that he had brought home some poison pills. He was wondering how long it was going to take for them to start filtering through. He was thinking that this was one of the reasons. That he was still restricted to the "hotel" and had not been allowed to go to his own home. He wanted to find out what had changed. They could not see the burn scar from the massive wildfire, but the story had been in the reports he had been able to read. He already knew that one of his favorite fishing streams was ruined. He still wanted to see the runoff damage with his own eyes. At least the additional cold weather hearty seeds would come in very handy in the near future.

Robert brought his mind back to the meeting at hand. "We had some good luck on and in, a few different systems. We had some problems selling all of our large ticket items. We did find a few items, of a lot of different types. All most all of them, were things on the list you gave us to look for. I also found a few things, that I thought would be worthwhile to bring back."

Commander Xi looked down her nose and focused her eyes on Captain Copeland. "You also turned up some interesting intelligence while you were gone. Star League level weapons not only in production, but they are also well known to all corners of the Inner Sphere. Then there is the whole maybe a clan unit in hiding for forty years, in the Inner Sphere of all places."

Jess gave a grin and jumped. SLIC did not fall under Commander Xi's department. They had their own chain of command, when they were back in the home system. "Also, don't forget about making the nice people at ComStar so happy to see us again."

Commander Xi was not happy with that comment. She shot the younger woman a look, before turning her gaze back onto Copeland. "Yes, and also let's not forget them, and your new friend the female Duke."

Jess knew she stepped into something. She had meant the comment to be a joke. It looked like it had fallen very flat. She went on the defensive for her Captain. "Commander. We kept to the cover story, and every supply run has had issues with the robed wonders. We made sure that we were not followed, and we had a clean sweep from the Yukon. Captain Copeland has been able to use his contact with Duke Terry, to help us at almost every stop we made on the run. Without that contact, and the information she gave us? We would not have known to look for signs of SLDF tech, and I do not think we would have looked for those books. By the way. How has the HPG decoding team done? They were told not to talk to anyone, even shipmates after they got dirtside." She was intel, and in charge of the HPG team while on the mission. To find that she had been cut out of the information loop, had been very concerning to her.

Commander Xi let a smile break over her face. Robert knew that she like playing games, and Jess had fallen into it hip deep. That had not stopped her from fighting right back at the senior officer. A little bit of backbone was expected to be found in a Wolverine combat officer. Xi relented and let the younger woman off the hook.

"The intelligence teams are going nuts. They have not been this deep into something new, since the Colonial showed up. Everyone is happy with what you have brought back." She was not going to bring up that mostly it was being used to double check the information, that had come from another source that had recently "turned up". She was not fully briefed in on what the small Coast Guard vessel had brought, but she knew that it was giving a lot of people heart burn.

Margret Xi had to fight to keep her "work" face on. "The reason for this meeting is to let you know, as the Convoy commander. That we have taken some of the items out of the warehouse, after the whole cargo had been inventoried. Supply command was very happy with the three leopard engines. The leopard class light carriers have been used rather heavier, than had been planned in the last year. They passed along, if you can get a few more? That they would gladly take them off your hands. It was assessed that you saved them around 20 million script per engine. I am told that one of the engines will be put into use, by the end of the month. Until you returned. The plan was to pull the ship out of service, for about four months. That was how long it was going to take to pull out and to rebuild the old engine. That takes care of the cost of the refitting of the Styx. It would also cover your whole operations budget, for this run."

Robert was smiling a sly smile. "I was worried, a little. That I might have been making a bad play, in getting them. In the end, I thought they at worst would be used, at some time in the future. Now that we know where we can get them. How many, would be too many?" Robert was already thinking about the next run.

Commander Xi had to look at the noteputor, and she made a face. Robert had asked a perfect question. And one she should have known the answer to, right off the top of her head. "They did not say, but I would be careful if you brought more than four or five more of them back. Dropship engines are reliable things. Too many, and they will just sit in a warehouse somewhere for years to half a decade, before they are needed. That would cut down on the assessed value, for the resupply mission as a whole. The next item on your inventory, which has been pulled out of the warehouse were the 30 Nighthawk suits. They are listed as costing 2.6 million Star League script for each of them, in a new condition."

Xi gave a shrug and kept talking. "I have no idea how they came up with that number. Due to the damage, and the amount of time it will take to get them ready to issue. That is, if they can? Right now, they are assessed at 2 million each. I bet that it is going to tap all of the parts, that they have been hand making to keep the force in action. Finding the Star league base was some impressive bit of work. I know that higher command would like you to try to find more, if you can protect the clan while you do so. Those are all of the things taken out, so far. I would expect more to be withdrawn for military use, as the inventory is seen by more eyes."

Commander Xi pulled out another sheet of paper. "Those 2 line items have covered all the cost of the mission, and it has even paid off all of the refitting cost of the Rob Roy. The beat-up merchant class jumpship is going to be harder to pay off, but still. As it turns out? All of those Merchant parts will have a place to be used to help the Navy. Captain Copeland those were some amazing finds, you were able to pull off. It's going to take some more time, before it is all gone through."

Robert was very happy. Granted those two inventory line items had been more luck than skill on his part, to get. "When and what will be the first items put on the block for sale, Commander? How long do you think it's going to take until the Colonials start asking questions?"

Commander Xi gave a sly smile. "Now, listen to your language. Query-Affirmative. You have been surrounded by those barbarians to long. And it will be the two Rock Hounds and 2 of the 30 ton class logger mechs, which will be going on the sale's site tonight. One of the shipping containers of meat has been put for sale, in 50pound lots. That was a few hours ago. I do not know, if you knew it. But even average cuts of beef had been going for almost 4 Star League script a pound, before you showed up. It had gotten as high as five script per pound." Commander Xi folded up her hands and they covered her files.

"When will the Colonials find out about the run? I will bet some time tomorrow, when they do the planet wide press release about you coming back. Captain Copeland, Robert. I think you might want to keep a low profile for a while and stay out of the City-State. So, I do not know how you are going to sell that stuff that you acquired. You and the rest of the officers are on leave for the next 30 days. I know that we talked about a 90 days furlough, during the planning and recruiting phases. That regulation has changed with a war on. I hope you have some fun and relax."

Robert liked what he was hearing. He already had plans for his items, but he had one more important question to ask. "Commander Xi, when will we be going out again, or was this a onetime shot after all?" They were only guaranteed one run, when he had left on this mission. High command would have to approve a second run, and any follow-on runs.

Commander Xi gave a half smile, which she had picked up from Robert in the first place. "They do not know yet, officially. I would say, that yes. They will approve another run. The voting meeting will be held in September. I think that they will like you to start your second run, maybe a month later. That is if things go the way, I think they will. But I also have a feeling that this is going to be a very political decision, and you know that they can do things that we think are dumb."

Robert nodded his head. "If they ask you, Commander? I will be ready whenever they give the word. I even have a roughed-out travel plan. I would need an updated shopping list, and a crew to man the ships."

Commander Xi laughed. "I am sure you do, Robert. Now if you all will excuse me? I have a meeting with some of my people, about some more of the goodies you brought back with you." Commander Xi rose from the table. She shook hands with each of them, and then she spun and walked out of the room. The two other officers followed her out of the room, but they made a different turn after clearing the door jam.

Some hours later. Jess looks at Robert, as they waited for a taxi outside of the warehouse and barracks building. Both had seen to it, that their personal cargos were shipped to wherever it needed to go while they waited to be released from the base. Robert had more cargo by a lot more, than Jess had been able to acquire. She did not have the starting capital or experience in shopping, that the Captain brought to the table. While they waited? Finally, she just had to ask something, before they separated for an unknown length of time.

"Captain Copeland? I was wondering. Why did you trade all of those used mech parts, for all of that natural fiber cloth?"

Robert had to turn his head and look down at the younger woman, he was almost a half a foot taller than her. He had noticed that something was bothering her, for a few days now. He was just waiting to see, if she would tell him about it. He gave her a friendly smile and went into training mode. "What you are asking about. Is why buy and import natural fabric, when almost all of the clothes the clan uses are made from manmade fabric?"

Jess knew the tone, but she stuck to her guns. "Yes, something like that. I have been looking at it six ways from Sunday. And I still cannot understand, why you would do something like that. Did I miss something, Query-Affirmative?"

"Well Jess, I know something about that subject. The factory that makes all the cloth for the clothes. It is also the only one that makes uniforms for the military. A military uniform only last about six months, in combat. The factory went into overdrive before we left, but it's only just keeping up with minimum needs of the actively fighting units. Then you threw in 50,000 additional people, with basically only the clothes on their back on a very cold planet? Oh, and how do you like your new 2000 count near-cotton sheets that you brought with you when you reported to the After-Action Hotel?"

Jess mouth dropped to the ground. "I love them. I did not connect those dots, and I should have. Thank you, Sir! Do you think that it will stay that way?"

Robert gave the woman a sly smile, and he let his word usage drop back into work mode. "I don't know. Will you get the same price that I will on this type of load? I don't know, but I would doubt it. I have found that high quality cloth, tends to be worth a good bit of money to the right buyer. That is if we have room for it. The trick in being a merchant. It is in knowing what something is worth here, and then finding it very cheap somewhere else."

Jess nodded, that the statement had made since to her. It also showed her that she still had a lot to learn from this man. "Thank you, Captain. I will try to remember that, if we are able to make another supply run."

 **Notes** :

 **The spy Isaac Nelson:** The ComStar spy being found would be kept as a very closely guarded secret. That story is on the Battletech forum site. ComStar has lost at least three vessels to Clan Wolverine. The Magellan class Pheidippides, is the only one of those three in current use.

 **The DNA Test.** The Test was to make sure everyone who was on the mission was who they said they were. It was a just in case someone had slipped through the other testing. No issues were found, and no one was detained.

 **Why was Jules not with Copeland and Jess?** His daughter is the leader of their people. He has political issues as well as military issues he will be asked about.

 **Data flow**. The SLiE gets some information from clan space. It is not a data core, or anything close to that. Think of it like this. Someone in the Dark Caste picks up on something and reports it back to "someone", that is going to be doing some long-distance traveling. Then they play the telephone game for a few years to a few decades with that information.

The Dark Caste does not know where the Wolverines are, compared to the rest of known space. And the Wolverines will not tell them where they are or leave any hints for the rest of the Clans to find. That would be worth too much to trade to the clans for their own skins. They might get a Gig of data every decade. The SLiE are more interested in keeping up, tech wise, with the rest of the clan. Who cares what the name of the Jade Falcons Khan was last decade?

 **Selling the cargo**. There are a lot of people who would want, what the supply run had brought back. What would be a fare way of letting the whole population have access to items, which are not for just for the military to use? Also, how do you know if the run was worth the effort? The US military does a cost/benefit analysis on projects every 1-5 years. This does not rub everyone the right way, but the bottom line has to be measured somehow.

 **Cleaning out the jump point**. If you can jump closer to the planet, why have that sign post out that way. So, they would start clearing those areas out. Besides they are going to need more resources to keep the war effort going.


	24. Chapter 24 1 sep 3047

**Chapter 24**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop.

 **1 Sep 3047**

 **New Circe.**

The meeting was made up of a mix of military and civilian leadership. Well about as civilian, as Clan Wolverine and the Star League in Exile got. There were over twenty people in a room buried deep underground. The room was so full, that it was uncomfortably full of people. They also were not all clan or ex clan members in attendance.

Admiral Adama and his wife and current leader of what was left of the Colonies of Kobal, Laura Adama-Roslin were on one side of the table. Jennifer Vaun the Lord Protector of the clan and the leader of this world, and the military that was defending it, was sitting center of the briefing area. This was only the fourth meeting, in this location, that the Colonials had been allowed or invited to attend. And the only reason they were hear now? It was because of the blowback that had happened, when word was released about the supply mission that had just returned from going closer to Earth than any Colonial had been allowed.

This briefing was well into its second hour and about to cross the line into hour number three. They had already been brought up to speed on the ship lost in time, that had been dropped into their system. They had known about the ship, but almost all of the details had been withheld. Those hours had been required to cover the history that might have been. They also had covered the issues that had come up with the other supply runs. It was all a rehash for everyone else, but the Colonials. When it was over? The Lord Protector leaned forward and looked down to the Colonial admiral.

"So, Admiral Adama. Does that cover why we did not offer the information about the resupply run to you?"

Bill Adama was tired, he was feeling every day of his age today. That did not mean that he was about to roll over and show his belly to anyone. When word had reached his people about this supply run, it had almost caused more riots in the street. He had thought that the Coast Guard vessel had been an issue. The civil unrest was something he and his new wife could live without, and if this "ship lost in time" details were ever leaked out. He had no idea how that would come back and bite him on the ass. He could think of a few ways that some of his people would react to a ship lost in time. He was also upset that something of this magnitude had been done, and his people had been kept in the dark about it.

"Lord Protector, I think we need to take our time and look at this "timeline" closer. I do not remember any classes in the Academy about time travel. I also understand that these runs are done at some risk, and they must be kept secret for many reasons."

Admiral David Whitfield turned red, and then let it out. "Admiral, it is not just that we must keep it secret. The people that do these missions, sometimes have given their lives to keep it secret from any outsiders. We have lost mechs, and the pilots will end their lives, instead of being taken alive. We have lost entire jumpships with her droppers, and the crews. By the time we could make it to the area, to help them? All of our people would be dead. One time that was almost 500 people lost, and not one Wolverine was captured alive. Tell me Admiral Adama, can you guarantee that your people will go to those same lengths to keep our secret?"

Adama was about to fire a quick comeback but stopped, when Laura put her hand over his and gave it a slight squeeze. Laura had something to say. "Admiral Whitfield, you have a point. We cannot do that, for all of our people. I understand that you test your people, to see if they are that committed. Or maybe we will call it having the right mental alignment, to do this type of work."

Laura saw the female Star League leader nod her head up and down. She made sure to keep her face very still. "That is what I thought." She went into political mode. "What we would like to do, is just add some of our people to these tests. If they pass your tests? Then they can be put on a list of available crewmembers. If they do not pass? Then they will be replaced, with others who do pass all of those tests. We will keep going until we have a pool of available personnel. Then we can talk about how our people can work together on this project in the future. You will need all the people you can get, if these other clans are coming back. That does not count how we will be able to help fight this "Flu" bioweapon, that is going to be developed or could be developed in a different future."

Jennifer Vaun was thinking, _"This woman was good, very good. It would be a shame, when she steps down from the leadership of these people_." She kept her own face still.

"Madam President. That is something we can work with, and it is a good idea. We can kick that idea to each of our Navy staffs, to work out the details. Query-Affirmative?"

The male Adama nodded that he would agree to add some Colonial born to be tested, to see if they might be added as crews of any future supply mission. Until the Star League Head of Personnel had rubbed his nose in the information. It had not really gotten through to him, about what they risked on these supply runs. It was time for him to cave a little in this horse-trading session.

"I can accept that. It will take some time to get a list of volunteers together, much less start the testing. I do not think we will have anyone cleared for your next run." Bill leaned back into his thick padded chair. "I would like to know more, about how the major end items you have brought back to the system have or will be distributed? Also how did you come up with the requirements for acquisition on these supply runs?"

Commander Xi got the signal to speak from the head of the SLiE military. She was the head of the Clan Wolverine's External Supply department. "When a supply run is in the planning stages, a shopping list is drawn up. The last run was a bit rushed and smaller, than what we have done in the past. We had hoped that we would not need to make the next run for some time. The current war pushed us to try something new, when we looked at the technology of your jump drives. The shopping list we gave to Captain Copeland, is only a guideline. He picked up long storage food, tools, and equipment that we are either short of or are not making due to other needs of our people. Some of the things that he was asked to try to find, were items that might be of use to the Colonials. We had him look for wheeled based construction and farming equipment, as well as the normal industrial mechs we have picked up on past runs. We also put the same types of laser systems, that are being fitted to your Viper class fighters on that list at a large number. And as a guideline, the mission commander can use his judgement on what to bring back. Also, each member of the crew has a cargo allotment that they can use to help supplement their normal income."

Commander Xi was looking at the Colonials. "Not all of the items brought back were put on the "G-bids and Auctions site". The dropship engines and Nighthawk light power armored suits were not even listed as coming back to the general public. The same goes for the combat mech, which Captain Copeland was able to acquire."

The ground force commander had almost had kittens, when a heavy-duty cargo truck and trailer had shown up at his base filled with the 30 suits and two very lightly used fitting rigs. He had been able to increase the size of his force by ten percent in a little over a week. That was even after six of the newish suits had been cannibalized to fix battle damage suits, or the refitting of the other newish suits. It would be maybe another month, before word of mouth had the news spread planetwide about the new suits. Somethings just could not be kept quiet, even on New Circe.

Commander Xi continued with her part of the briefing. "Not all of the items will be put up for sale or used by civilians. Most of the items will end up that way, and most of those will be put out in small lots sized auctions. We do not want one person with a lot of capital hording all of one type of items. So, we try to make it harder for something like that to happen. It will not stop that type of action, but it tends to make it harder for them to get away with it. As of this meeting? All of the industrial workmechs have been sold. About half of the trucks have found new owners. We make our own version of the Mauser 960, so the others will be going up for sale. They will be going right along with the other handheld weapons that were brought back."

She flipped to a new page. "The ores, tools, food, wines from New Dawn, medical items, the seed for Wheat and other types of grains, the spare parts for the different workmechs, as well as the frozen embryos will be put up for sale in small lots starting in a week or so. The two Blazer optic grinding sets, crew served weapons, and the light mech they picked up will not be sold on the open market."

Xi stopped talking and looked around the room, making sure to make eye contact with each person. "These are the recommendations from me and my office. Are there any objections?" She was sure of the outcome, but the additions of the City State into this meeting could very easily derail her calculations.

The Lord Protector looked left and then right, before moving down the line to the representative from the Colonial city state. It was time to offer the newcomers a bone. "If the Colonial government would like to make arrangements to buy, I think it's called a Wolfhound light battlemech? I am open to this transfer of the weapons and technology. I have to warn you, that it is not as powerful as a like massed machine that our army is fielding. I understand that some of our R and D people want to spend some time with it, before they will let it out of their labs."

Both of the Adamas gave a shutter that they could not hide, when they heard those words. This was for two reasons, and both had equal weight. One was that Colonials were not comfortable with any type of two legged Battlemech or Battle Armor. It was often referred to as strapping on or getting into a Cylon. That was why not one of the slightly over two dozen industrial mechs, had been bought by a Colonial or a Colonial headed company. The other reason for the shutter, was the cost of trying to first buy a war-machine like that and then trying to maintain it after they "owned" it. Bill looked at Laura who looked back at him. Bill took it as it was his job to decide.

"Lord Protector. The Colonial military would NOT like to acquire that machine. It does not match our current fielding plan for the near future of our ground forces." Admiral Adama was glad that he had already forwarded his long-ranged plan on his ground forces, to his counter parts in command of the SLiE ground forces.

Laura was always amazed when the elder Adama went politically correct in speaking, so with a sly smile. "We understand that over a hundred and twenty of the same type or output laser weapons for our Vipers, that we have been buying from your government, were picked up on this supply run. We would like to put a hold on the sale or other use of those weapons. We do not have the funds to buy them now, but we will in the future. We are looking at anything that will help us standardized our logistics, and that is also affordable. Also, I have heard something referred to as a Blazer Rifle. It was brought up here, again. What is it, and you said something about Captain Copeland bringing back two? But I thought that almost two dozen were being put up for sale?" It would not have been the first time that something had been lost in translation between the two groups. It was getting less common, but it was still known to happen from time to time.

The 3313th Mechanized Infantry BDE commander was closest to the Colonial. "Madam. A Blazer rifle is like a double-barreled laser rifle. It is an impressive weapon, but lower tech than what we use or issue to our troopers. It does hit harder in one shot but is less useful against your normal infantry grunt type target. It also has an energy problem, as in you are limited in the number of full power shots. It is very limited for what you get in a power pack, before your battery supply is completely depleted. That is an issue, for open ranged combat. I will admit that it is not a bad bit of combat kit. Only it is kind of a one trick pony. Captain Copeland was able to pick up the core, for two manufacturing set ups to make more of them. The ones that are going up for sale, are the Blazer weapons that were found at what they are calling Jess's Toy Box."

Bill Adama was interested. So far only the few ground combat troops and his counter boarding marines head direct energy weapons. Most of those, had been bought by the troopers themselves. The Military just did not have the money for a massive buy of those type of weapons. Every time they could, they would buy a few dozen. Most of the time something else would come up, that was more important than buying some handheld weapons. They still had plenty of the old-style Colonial Navy weapons. And they could kill Cylons pretty well, now that they were making their own military grade ammunition for those types of weapons. Bill looked at Commander Xi. He did not know the answer to a question, that he was about to ask.

"What kind of one trick, are these weapons?" Bill was not a ground commander, but he had learned a few things in his career.

Commander Xi took the lead. "They are used when one of the Houses military units knows that or thinks that an enemy is weak in infantry, but heavy in tanks or mechs."

Admiral Adama was surprised but wanted to make sure he had all of the facts. "So, you do use them but only when you think you're going against big targets." He had not noticed that he had let loose with a contraction. He did not even notice of few faces react to the use of "you're" in this statement.

Laura was looking at her husband, but again. She had no idea where he was going with this line of verbal thought. After so many years together, this was an unwanted surprise. "What are you thinking about, Bill?"

Bill Adama had an odd little smile on his face. "The Cylons are getting harder to kill with the new types of combat units that they are starting to field. Laura, Protector, if we can work out a deal. We can start building these Blazer Rifles for the Colonial and SLDF. That would put us one step ahead of the Cylons in deployment of updated weapons."

Commander Xi did not like what she was hearing. "Admiral, as a person who is in the business of supplying the needs of the SLDF forces. I do not know how many Blazer style rifles are needed. I have not seen a request to put them on the shopping list. Also, what Copeland brought in are the lens grinding equipment and a few odds and ends for small rate productions, of those weapons. They can make at most, the lenses for laser weapons that are what we call Age of War level tech."

Bill was letting the corners of his mouth droop, then he dropped another card on the table. "Yes, but how about on your later supply runs? It seems that from the reports, I have read. This might be a popular weapon within the Inner Sphere. If we could make about a hundred extra or so of these weapons. That would add something that could be traded, and it would not be in short supply here. Even if they prove not to be worth the effort of issuing out to our people to combat the Cylons, they would have some value other places."

Commander Xi's eyes shot open, and her head whipped around to the highest ranked person in the room. "Lord Protector! That is a good idea. We do not have that many NEW things to trade with the Inner Sphere. Everything that we have been using to trade. It has been used, some of it for a few hundred years. Now that SLDF military tech is starting to come off the production lines in the Inner Sphere. It will negatively affect us. We do not have that much extra manufacturing capacity. to make any extra Mauser 960s at this time."

Laura had the brain itch. By now she had a better base reference of military matters, but it still was not her strong suit. "That is what? The third time during this briefing. Why is it so upsetting that the other powers have started in production of Star League level technology?" She gave a short chuckle that carried around the group. "I'm just an old schoolteacher."

Jennifer let out a loud snort. "Madam Adama. You are a lot more, than just a schoolteacher. The Inner Sphere was in a technology tailspin for a couple of centuries. That was not great for us strategically, but it made what we had to trade a lot more valuable. Now that they are not falling any longer, and it is rising at a fast rate. That makes it harder for us to get the things that we have needed in the past from them. Also, right now we think they are only just able to refit machines, as they have the new high-tech parts. Why is that an issue for us? Laura it is all about the numbers, even with the latest additions to our planet. We are still under two million people living on this planet. We do not have enough people to invest in development of many new things. Our third line machines and most of our combat reserve are made up of what are called royal type machines. The Tech level is the same as what the Inner Sphere has just started making. They just have more of the high-tech items built into each of the machines. Right now, theirs might have one weapon that was slightly improved over the Age of War tech. We have only just pulled out the last of our Star League tech UAC 5s to be replaced with the newer more compact clan tech UAC/5s, LB-5's or the LB 5-X-AC, that we came up with together. Those new weapons are going into our front-line units first, and then working their way down to the lower priority units."

The Lord Protector could see that she was not hitting the right note in explaining. "Admiral Adama, what do you think of the Zug? You have worked with her for a few years now."

Bill Adama was a little taken back by the sudden question that seemed to be way off topic. "It is an impressive machine. I would have loved to have a dozen of them to fight the Cylons. Then they would not have survived trying to attack us."

The Lord Protector gave a sly smile. "That brings me to my point. When the Star League went to its final war. She had 280 other members of her class, alone. From what I remember in my Naval warfare classes, the SLDF navy had almost 500 capital warships alone. That did not count what the five major houses and the larger of the outlying states had in commission. That also does not count cruisers and smaller warships, or even Casper type drones, kind of like the Nike. While the SLDF was bleeding herself white? The other major powers were in a massive built up of their fleets. I also cannot tell you how many ships were in mothballs or were just listed as armed transports during that time."

Bill Adama went white as a sheet, and in a soft voice that carried across the desk. "By the gods." He was trying to picture that size of a fleet in his mind, and it was just shutting down on him.

The Lord Protector took pity on the older Colonial. "Admiral in any conflict." She stopped talking and changed the track she wanted to try. "We are going to lose machines faster than we can replace them. We have learned this the hard way, once before. As we lose machines? We will have to replace them with less capable systems, that will cause higher losses. Right now, we had to decide to make aerofighters instead of more advanced ground Battlemechs. What happens when we need to make more Battlemechs? We will have to make do with fewer fighters. That math changes a little, with you guys. With you building and manning the Avar production lines? This has let us replace our combat losses, and even start replacing some of our older light machines with the craft we are buying from you. We know, due to the Kowloon Coast Guard ship. That the Clans are coming, and soon. At least it did in their timeline, all to be replaced with this demon spawn Word of Blake."

Laura and Bill looked at each other, but it was Laura who replied. "Madam Protector, what can my people do to help. Our futures are locked together, so how do we work through this problem together?" Laura pulled over a cut corner pad of off-white paper to write on. She was not interested in using one of the slowly growing number of digital devices found in the City State.

Jennifer tried not to smile. This subject had come up often at her level, and on many news entertainment shows. The Colonials were small in number, but they had two large Battleship/Carrier type vessels to man. As well as taking the lead of manning and maintaining the SLS Kaga, a Samarkand class carrier. They still had a deep pool of highly experienced space trained personnel to draw on. They also were still flying the small Viper VII's, but they were making more and more of the 35ton Avar Omni fighters to fill both navies' fighter wings. Besides making small jump engines and ammunition. They were not putting a lot into other areas of the SLDF in Exile order of battle, right now. They were working on an infantry force unit made up of people who had failed out of the small space marines, fighter and Raptor schools. But the math said that they would only be able to form a Battalion worth of full time Infantry.

The Flight School they were opening up, was using what was left of the Mk II and the recovered MK V Vipers before the students moved on to Viper MK VII and the fleet for final training. Her people were planning on sending all of their young entry level pilots threw there, to get the basics of flying down. That would lighten the load on the Wolverine small Aerofighter academy. The first full sized class had started at the beginning of this year.

"One thing that you are doing already, that is a great help. That is your baby boom, which you are having. This is not going to be a short war, unless we lose it. Still we need you to find the resources to start manufacturing more military components. If you can find the funds to invest in building the manufacturing lines for say, our clan tech third generation Heat Sink. Each combat machine needs between ten and twenty of them to work. If you can make that last number a week? It would have a ripple effect for other projects my people are working on. The same is true of the 1ton class of pulse lasers, the ones called medium pulse lasers. If you could get a few built each week? It also would have a positive effect on the battlefield. All of these items would leave only a small footprint in your city. Me, I would love it if you could find the funds to build a factory to make the upgraded Mars heavy tank. We picked up the plans for it about fifty years ago."

When Adama and Laura gave an odd look. The head of the 3313th Brigade passed over a noteputor to the pair, with the basic information of the tank displayed. Adama was a spaceman, but even Laura was impressed with the massive 100ton tank. That is right until, they got to the estimated per unit cost to build the monsters. Both of the Colonial's heads shot up when they hit the line that held the number of 21 million in the local currency for each tank.

Laura was gob smacked, so Bill had to be the one to say something. He had been the one who had to fight for the budget every year with their elected leaders. "I'm sorry Lord Protector. But there is no way that we can afford to make something like this. Much less build a factory to build and support the making of something like that."

He looked back at the image of the heavy war-machine and shook his head. "I do not know when we would be able to do something on this scale."

Jennifer, the Lord Protector smiled. She had given them the bat, now for the sugar. "I am not surprised. We all are in the same boat. I would like to address another issue. Your non-combat fleet is only supporting a few active ships. If you have the space-based production available on your manufacturing ships, to make Ferro-Aluminum Armor, Ferro-Fibrous Armor, or even Lamellor Ferro-Carbide? My people will buy every scrap of it. If you can make a hundred tons of any of those armors in a month? We will use it. We even have a dozen engineers, who can be sent over at the end of the week to help with the conversion."

Bill and Laura spoke at the same time in stereo. "What's the catch?" The Star League in Exile had been very helpful, but they also did not give anyone a free lunch.

Now Jennifer gave a full-face smile, and everyone on her side of the table cringed. "See Madam President, not just a schoolteacher. The price for the help, and for my people to buy that armor plate? It is that we want you to put a five percent income war tax, on everyone living in the City State. I will remind you, that this is a request. It is only about half of what all of my people have to pay. That is on top of the other tax's we assess, before we came together."

When the two Colonial leaders did not explode out of their seats, the Lord Protector continued with her demands. "We want those funds, from that tax, to be used to support only the war effort. I think we can call it a planetary defense tax. One that will run for the next three years, or until the war ends." It was well known to the Clan leadership that the Colonial leadership was getting a lot of push back from the religious sects in her area of control. They and the many different unions were used to being able to have all of their income and revenue from investments, to be totally tax free.

This was a political decision, so it was squarely in Laura's ballpark to have to deal with. She had been pushing for just something like that, with Bill working behind the scenes to help her. The Quorum was blocking it at every move. The different religious groups felt that they should not have to pay the government, for the money and other support they were given. They had been tax exempt, even in times of war back home. In fact, they had been pushing for government support, to help pay for the rebuilding of all of their temples and to give money for their priest to live on. Now Laura could hammer those ideas flat. After all, who could ignore a planetary defense tax? Temples and Union Halls were only good, if they were not blown apart from orbit by the Cylons.

"Lord Protector. It will have to be voted on by the Quorum, but I will pass it along. I will also tell them that it is a request coming from a senior member of the government. I think that it is a workable idea. I just have to remind them about the jobs, this would bring to our people. And that your people have been supporting and helping to protect us. It is time to start supporting the overall defenses of the planet. I just have to use small words to remind them, that it's their Fraking butt on the line behind those defenses." She did not say that all of those funds, would be used to build factories within the Colonial areas.

Bill Adama looked around the table. It was time to see if he could get something on the table, which he and his people would want. "Lord Protector. It would help Laura sell this tax plan, if we could connect it to something that might be closer to home for them. I would like to be able to tell them, that we are planning another raid into Colonia/Cylon space. WE would like to see about collecting some of the civilian wrecks. We can also spend some time looking for any more survivors. With more of those types of ships? We can cover more areas and recover more items, that both of our people need."

Bill held up his hands. "I'm not wanting or needing a commitment to this mission. Only that I can say that it is in the planning and evaluation phase. If it does not go? Well, she tried, and they are called the enemy for a reason." Bill was not that game on recovering more ships. He just wanted to blast a few more Basestars and other types of Cylons into atoms.

The head of the SLDF military looked over to the Lord Protector. "Lord Protector? That could be a good idea. We can look to "see" what we can do. All we would be out, is some staff time and midnight oil. Another attack on the Cylons home turf? That would keep them off balance. If they are off balance? They will have to spread their forces out some more to protect other areas. That would buy us some more time, and it would slow their scouting effort down. I say we get a planning committee together and see if it is feasible."

The meeting went on for another two hours. Bill and Laura were brought up to speed on everything to do with the supply runs and the maybe future that had been showed to them. They were told and shown what projects this supply run was already supporting. It was amazing what 10,000 tons injection of hard to find items can accomplish, in both the short term and long-term projects. Bill Adama was wondering how many projects that double or triple that amount of supplies would do for the Colonials and Star League. How they would get an infusion of that size still concerned him.

Bill was impressed, with what the new mining machine had been able to do in only a few weeks. It was almost enough to make him want the Colonials to have a few of them. But it was only "almost", because they still made his skin craw when he saw them again in an image today. He could not imagine climbing into one. He was also surprised how quickly the new spare parts had been put to use. He had no idea how much equipment had been deadline due to needed repairs. It was a major indicator that the SLiE was straining every muscle to try to fight the Cylons.

After the meeting, Bill and Laura took some ground transportation to the edge of the city. They could have asked for one of the VTOLs, to give them a lift back to the Colonial City. The pair wanted to experience what was now the first land route connection between the Clan controlled areas and the Colonial City. The ride home to the Colonial city was on one of the new eighteen passenger 4ton hover buses that had been carried on the Lisbon Maru.

The route they were on, had been a slowly expanding in length and width of what was at first just a narrow mud trail. It still was mostly a dirt road, but it was now wide enough for 2-way traffic all the way to New Kobal. In fact, growing sections where being worked on that could hold four lanes of traffic wide. In the future. It was planned that it would be paved with something strong enough to be able to shift heavy combat reinforcements both ways, if they were attacked. It also would improve the trading between the two cultures.

As this road was expanding and improved. It was reducing the number of VTOL cargo and dropship lifts that were needed to support the trade between the two cultures. A second but still smaller road was being cut to the sea. There were other "trails" that were being cut to the growing farming areas and mineral mining sites throughout the city-state territory. They would slowly grow as there were hands and shovels to do the work.

Besides the driver, Bill, and Laura. They were the only ones on this run of the buss between the two developed areas. The trip back would be full of mostly younger Colonials heading to the big city for some entertainment for the night. They were just finishing flashing across a shallow river at over 100 mph in the late afternoon light. Laura looked at Bill, she figured that she might as well use the time they had alone. The driver had a thick armored glass separating the driver from the passengers.

"So, Bill. What are you thinking?"

Bill was staring off into space, not really looking at anything. His mind, as Laura had guessed, was working on several ideas at once. He was about to ask what she was talking about, but she gave him the old schoolteacher look and this changed his mind.

"I was thinking. About how to get the most bang for our current defense budget. What do you think about getting the Blazer Rifle line set up, but putting it in the University? We could split the cost between the two different budgets. The school would run the manufacturing during the day, as the students learn about Direct Energy Weapons."

He raised an eyebrow at his wife. She would hate the idea of students making weapons of war. "I would think that it would be a very popular class. I know that I would like to take it. I think it will at first slow down production. But if we ran three or four classes a day? That would move production to as close to 24 hours a day as you can get. Output, I bet, would still be lower than if we just did OJT and put in a dedicated factory for the weapons. But we would be learning a lot from it, while we were making that type of weapon."

Laura bit her lower lip. She did not need to tell Bill, that she did not really like the idea. But she was not coming up with a better one. "I might be able to sell that. But they are going to be wanting part are all of the profits on what they are making, with the student and instructor labor."

Bill got an odd look on his face, but the craggy face did not smile. "You can tell those over educated Frakers. That as soon as they can duplicate the machines, to make another line. Then they can sell all of the ones they want. Until then? They are supporting the war effort that is saving their lives and their school buildings." He set his jaw and looked over his wire frame glasses, just like she used on people.

Laura knew the look, "that said he was not going to budge", and she had to admit. That it was a sound plan. On top of a sound plan? It was one, which she thought she could sell to a certain group of people. Everyone would get something out of it. Then she decided to push. Bill Adama had a very sharp mind. She also knew that he very rarely only had one iron in the fire at a time.

"Okay, what else are you thinking about?" Laura turned to more fully look at her husband sitting in the seat next to her.

Now Bill raised his chin, it was a "tell" that he did not want to bring something up. Laura returned the look with a tilted head, and a raised eyebrow. If Bill wanted to sleep with both eyes closed? He knew that he had better spill the beans.

"I have been doing some work on the side. Do you remember the mission, which was sent out to raid the Cylon fuel mining base? The one that Felix was a part of and that the mission commander was such an ass."

Bill saw Laura nod her head. That mission was hard to forget. "Well, our people were able to pick up some large armor fragments from one of the Riflemen II's that was almost blown into scrap. I turned them over to our manufacturing ships, as soon as I could. They think that they can make what they called Ferro-Fibrous armor. I don't think it is going to be as good as what they can make, because we don't have any test samples to test it against the armor they make. I don't know about the Ferro-Aluminum, but as soon as you can get the hoop dancing done. I think we will be able to turn out the armor plate that they want. I think we will be able to do this a lot sooner, than they think that we can. If we can get that help for a certain length of time? What else can we use those brainpans for while we have access to them?"

Laura was both surprised, and not. He had not told her about this little plan about the armor scrap, but it was also a military matter. "So, what were you thinking Bill? That was a lot of planning and forethought. You must have at least an outline of a plan, which you had already mentally laid out."

Bill still did not smile, but he had a self-satisfied look. "I did some checking, when they started talking about those walking Cylons working with our people. I spent some time, reading and asking questions, whenever I had the time and target to ask. I figured, if we had a falling out after that mining raid? We would at least have an idea of a new type of armor plate to try to make, that was better than what the Cylons were known to use. When things worked out? I had our people keep trying to find new things to sell to the Wolverines."

He looked down at his hands, that were folded in his lap. "I was able to swing a tour of the Cache site. They have between 100 and 150 of those walking war-machines still in storage. They are all what they have left, from when they started running from the other Clans. That does not count the tanks and other propelled weapons. Did you know that the armor plate on their 100ton Pulverizer II cost 20,000 a ton? Now get this. It takes almost 20 tons of the stuff to cover its outside for each one of them?"

Laura had no idea about the numbers, but the simple math she could do in her head. That was almost half a million in SL script in armor, per machine. Before she could start working on the number of machines in the main depot or Cache. She wanted to make sure that she was on the right line of thinking. "Not all of the machines, have that much armor. I remember they lost some of the lighter machines on that raid of the Cylon fuel mine."

Bill smiled; she was picking up more military related information than she thought she knew. "Yes, some mech and fighters only have a few tons of the armor for protection. My long term plans? If we can make what they need for current use of both militaries. I was going to start trying to talk them into refitting all of the machines that they have in storage, with our new higher tech armor. I had all the engineers from the two production ships and the Beast get together. If we are just making Ferro-Fibrous Armor plates of the same quality as the SLiE? We can have an output of almost 100 tons a week. We could do that for about three months, before we would have to cut it back to more normal output of about 50 tons a week. We could maintain that level of production until we can add some more manufactory facilities for our people to man."

Laura was blinking at her husband. There were a lot of "ifs" in what he had just said in that speech. And each of those "ifs" were showstoppers. "That could help a lot, with our trade issues. Why have you waited before telling me?"

Bill shook his head from side to side. "The project was only ready for the next step, less than a month ago. I was trying to work out how to get the SLDF people over to help push us over the finish line. One that would not break the bank, or somehow cause any issues further down the line for you with a certain person over in the Quorum."

Laura smiled a little and then it fell from her face. "Bill, is it me? But they are giving me the feeling. That they are still not sure about launching a second supply run. I think it is a worthwhile idea of my own. If you could add something to the shopping list on a second supply run? What would you like to add?"

Bill Adama had been thinking about that, since he had heard about these supply runs. He was the head of the whole Colonial Defense force. "Laura the problem is not what we want, but what we can afford. I would love to be able to have one of those large space stations, I think they call it an Olympus class. That would help out with our military and civilian fleet support. I was reading some of the reports that came up from the coast not long ago. I also think both the Wolverines and our people are weak in sea or larger waterway combat control or policing ability. After that wildfire, I have found myself jumping at shadows. Fixing that blind spot would be top on my list, but right behind it would be some artillery. Maybe something like what they call a Long Tom. The Wolverines like the shorter ranged Thumper and Guided missiles. I would like to drop heavy rounds on my enemies as far away as I possibly can. The third item on my mental list of new military equipment, is some counter Raider capable track or wheeled systems. I was looking in one of the weapons books, which they brought back and put on the network. These people have been fighting each other for a very long time, and they have made weapons to fill all kinds of niches. Do you think, that if I submit a shopping list? That it would push them into green lighting the launching of the next run?" Bill was taken care not to push is wife to hard.

Laura did not say anything for a few seconds. "I don't think it would hurt. Why don't you get a list together? I will see if any other departments might want to add something, reasonable to it. I will submit it threw political channels, to the Lord Protector's office. I will have to check in on the legal issues, like what happens. If we get something on the list we submit, but we can't afford it at the time of delivery."

This was a good ice breaker and the two made small talk for the rest of the hour's long trip back to the Colonial built city, that was in the middle of the massive wood lands and slowly growing farm fields. They got off at the third stop within the city. By the time they exited the hover bus, it was almost half filled with younger people. The two leaders were given looks, but not one of the younger riders approached them.

By the next morning. The news services would be carrying on about the powerful leaders, using the new hover buss services put into service between the two key population centers. Most of the other news would be focused on the power couple being on a date night. It would not be for weeks, that the reason for the two to be in the Star League capital to make it into public knowledge.

 **Notes**

 **Even allies keep a few secrets**. Just because your allies. It does not mean that you share everything. And yes, they do spy on each other.

 **Old school medium lasers** : It was noted that the Viper VII could not generate and "surge" enough power to use clan grade medium lasers. This will not be an issue with any newer designs coming off the lines, that know about lasers in the first place. The Colonials now have enough medium lasers to field one on every Viper VII with a few leftovers for spare parts.

 **Link to Cannonshop's new story.** Working title "Teaser for a Proposed…thing". It is on the BattleTech forum page. . ?topic=67637.0


	25. Chapter 25 25 Sept 3047

**Chapter 25**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **25 Sept 3047**

 **The Station over New Circe**

Robert was boarding another Colonial built Raptor, only this one was crewed by personnel in SLDF uniform. Robert had been mailed real paper orders to report to one of the outlying military bases on this date. In the two-page document, he was told to be ready to do a full After-Action Report or AAR review with Commander Xi in her office. Robert had been surprised that it had taken this long to get around to having this done. When he contacted some friends, while he was "on vacation". He had been told that his was the last review that needed to be done. He was told that every report and rumor, besides the first one that had upset some of the Colonials, were very positive.

The ride up to the massive construction in space, was as smooth as he remembered. He had taken a few trips off planet during his time off, and he was getting very used to the artificial gravity decking. He was able to take the one seat in the troop transport, that was near a window. This gave him a great view of the Space Station and its construction and repair slipways, as they closed in. It was not the same station he had seen, when he had been here the last time. What had been at the two "normal" jump points was now integrated into the still growing orbital support base. It now looked like a giant metal mutated pair of spiders trying to reproduce.

That was not the only addition to the key to Clan Wolverines space support. He had been catching up on all the news and developments, which had happened on his planet of birth while he had been gone. The other scouting missions that had been launched after he had left, had been pulling in every bit of human technology that they could find. They were being systematic in their search and recovery mission. They were going in a growing circle or globe around this hidden system. The SLDF Navy had "hired" the Colonial ship Zephyr to be the new main salvage ship for the whole SLDF fleet. It was an impressive ship that was over 1,300 meters long and over 400 meters around at the turning ring. It was longer, wider and out massed a Monolith Class Jumpship.

Most of the stuff they had found had only been good for recycling, but other items were proving to be a lot more useful. They had hulked out six newly found dropships of indeterminate pedigree, and they had turned them into more offices and medium sized manufactory areas for the Station. They were small vessels with the largest being the wrecked Mule, that Robert had brought back on the last shakedown cruise. The number of building slips was now up to five. The two newest slips were smaller at only 800 meters long each. That was compared to the almost two kilometers long that the two older slips had been, and the pressurized yard that the Yukon normally used.

The other addition to the Station was a large Colonial style landing bay for small craft. It looked too have been at one time part of a Colonial Battlestar, when they got closer. He wondered where it might have come from, but he did not have long to think about it before his craft had entered the new addition to the SLiE space station. When Robert exited the 50ton short winged craft. He was again, surprised. He did not have to float to his meeting this time. The whole station had been outfitted with Colonial made artificial gravity plating. Well, all areas that needed them had been refitted with them. That was except for the manufacturing and building slips. They worked better in zero g.

The office that Robert was walking to was different than the last time, also. The insides of the Station were almost completely changed, in less than a year. He was glad that maps were now posted at each of the major hallway junctions. He found himself using them half a dozen times, that he could remember. He was "only" ten minutes early, and instead of just reporting to Commander Xi. He was sitting in a waiting room, just like they would have done down the gravity well. The only thing that was missing was a window with a view of the city's skyline. At the appointed time, Commander Xi's new assistant ushered him into her larger office.

When Robert entered the space rated hatch, the room was not much bigger than the office he had last seen her in. It was a little nicer and brighter than most rooms in a slapped together space-based outpost, that he could remember. He gave his boss the required salute, which she returned with the same professionalism.

"Well Commander. The new office is nice. I take it that the powers that be, were happy with our last run after all?" Robert was fishing. He was only a low ranked jumpship captain, and a very small fish in a very big sea of brass.

"Please have a seat." Commander Xi looked at Robert and decided to take him down a peg. "Captain Copeland! You are not the only project that I have oversight of. You are merely the most painful one to deal with, of the whole lot. So, we can get started Query-Affirmative?" Commander Xi pointed to a functional but nice office chair, in front of her metal desk.

Robert smiled at the Commander. He had to admit, it was a good comeback. When he settled into the chair. He pulled out his noteputor and accessed the reports he had filed over a month ago. "I'm ready whenever you are, Commander. What is your first question?" He used the word I'm, just to prove a point to the Commander. She was not the only one who could play games.

Commander Xi gave a hidden tooth smile and pulled out a hard copy file from her desk. She was always known to be a little old school, when it came to doing paperwork. The truth was? She hated computers, even before she found out that they could get smart and blow planets apart. Now she almost loathed to be around them.

"Let's start, Query-Affirmative. What would you change on the next run? And you will be taking the Merchant class jumpship with you to sell on the next run." Margret could not keep the smile off of her face. The fact that the mission was a go, had been kept from Robert. It had cost her many favors, and a lot of powerful people were in on the joke.

Robert's head snapped up. He was not expecting to start there. Every other AAR had started at the first day of the mission. It took him a few minutes to get his mind right about this change. Besides the head jerk, he was not going to let it show that she had surprised him with the revelations that the next run had been approved.

"Okay, what worked? It was having the Blockade Runner around. The heavy firepower made things easier for me, in more ways than one. I do not think putting it up for sale, is a good idea. I know that the regular navy people want to get rid of both of them, but I do not know if that is the right thing to do. The Hobgoblin worked out great, and I also want to keep her and the six fighters. I want to upgrade our weapons technology. I would like to upgrade all the craft to equal to a Royal level of offensive ability." Robert stopped talking and looked up from his electronic device. He was still reading what he had sent down the day he had arrived back over New Circe. There should not have been any surprises in what he had just said.

Commander Xi was looking at the older man. She had let her face slip and she knew it. "That is not going to happen. High Command and the Lord Protector will not risk something like that. None of your reports or the reference material you brought back, say anything about royal level machines in use much less in widespread use. Until you run into units fielding a lot of upgraded weapons? The only Star League tech you will have, are what are on the Styx. You will now be able to use those to their full capabilities. There is a cost and time issue as much as the security risk issue, for this decision.

Robert was not surprised, about not getting the upgraded fighters. She also had a point of not running into anyone, so far, which had anything in the field with high-tech weapons. That did not and would not help them, if something went sideways. "Okay, but I would like the Extended Range Large Lasers to be upgraded to first tier levels of the SLDF Navy." He knew that he was asking a lot. It would not take that long to change out the old first generation extended ranged weapons to clan tech second generation weapons.

Commander Xi looked down at her computer and made some notes. "I will pass that along, but it will be a breach if the technology is revealed. What else."

Robert looked down at the screen. "Thank you, Commander. Now, if we are expecting to move the other jumpship. I am going to be getting a lot of items. I do not think the Mule can hold that much, that the sale should bring in. We also have the cash we did not use from the sale of the Scout. If I take one of the Mammoth class dropships? It would let me bring over 36,000 tons of cargo versus the under 10,000 the Mules could hold. I was thinking that I could leave the Mammoth on the Styx, and just use the White Rabbit with her 1,500ton cargo space to run to the planets and back to the Styx. With the upsurge in technology? I think that I could fill a ship that size on most of the stops. It might take be a little longer to fill the larger cargo ship, but I think I can do it and still stay within the timeline that was outlined in the first mission." Robert was in Sales Mode as he pitched his idea in person.

Robert had spent a lot of time thinking about this, and he had come up with a few different ideas. "Having the larger dropship, would also let me do some things to help with the security issue we discovered. I can convert one of the small craft bays into two more fighter bays. I could also put in a few passenger modules on the larger dropship. With some of those emplaced? Then I can carry additional troops and their equipment, for long term security on all of the mission craft. Speaking of security issues, from the last mission. What happened to that device, that we recovered from when they unlocked the White Rabbit's hatches?"

Commander Xi was taking notes like a mad woman. "I will look into this modification with some of the engineer teams. I am however, concerned that taking a dropship that large and it never touches a planet. Do you think it would look odd to anyone, like ComStar? I am expecting that they will be watching you a lot closer, as soon as they find out that your back."

The Commander stopped talking and spent the next two minutes looking for the information he had asked about. When she had found it? She made eye contact to the still silent man. "They are calling it a hacking deck. Until you brought that device back with you? It was only assumed to be used to get into a battlmech's operational systems. The hardware base line was not that impressive, and we would have call it a mid-level portable commercial office machine. The software, on the other hand? That was impressive enough, that some people in our intelligence sections are wanting to add it to our kit for special missions. I am making a note to add a copy of it to your tool kit, if it is safe and without any booby traps. I am betting on, what you really wanted to know, is if we can come up with any worthwhile counter intrusion software."

Robert gave a sly, but almost childish smile to his boss. "Yes, that was what I wanted to know. We were watching them, and it was freaky how fast those Frakers made it through the hatch locks. If they cannot come up with a software patch? I will have to see what physical patches might work to stop them, if they try something like that again." Robert was speaking very politically. He knew to his toes that ComStar or one of their proxies would try to use something like that on his people again.

Commander Xi nodded, having someone sneaking onto one of your grounded dropships was not an enjoyable thought. "Nothing that has been reported, but I will make another note to check on it. I would suggest that you might want to think up some more physical counter measures for any unwanted visitors, just in case."

Captain Copeland nodded his head up and down and gave a soft snort. Then he went to writing his own notes, as a reminder to start coming up with ideas or contacting some others that might know something about how to stop a B and E of a dropship. "Thank you, Commander. I will put that on my "To Do" list. Can I let some people I know into the loop about that hacking deck? I might have a few contacts that might be helpful for the overall project. The issue of having a cargo ship, not making a run to a planet. It is in my experience, that it is not that big of an issue. A lot more trading is happening at the jump points, than had been reported on any other supply run."

Commander Xi thought about it for a few seconds, and then agreed with the Captain. "Yes, you may. As far as I know, SLIC is not keeping the Hacking Deck close hold. Now, your point about adding more security to your mission. It has merit. It was already brought up by most of your lower ranked officers and senior enlisted. You made up a scratch 4-person team, that had failed out of infantry training. You used them for both an escort and quick reaction force. I will put forward an idea to up the numbers and make them a dedicated security or marine force. Do not even think about asking to use some of those PA(L) suits you found. It is not going to happen. All of the top of the line equipment is earmarked to be used to fight the Cylons."

Commander Xi could see the mouth of Robert open and then close, as she finished her prepared statement. He was hit so fast, that before he could put his poker face back on. He had a schoolboy being told "no sweets for him today". It was a little unfair, that he would not be able to use something that his command had found. She decided to throw him a bone.

"I will make sure they are outfitted with the best equipment that we can. Have you seen what the Colonial sidearms can due to normal body armor? I would suggest that you check it out. It is not as good as our best lasers, but each round they fire is armor piercing. A lot of private security people are picking them up on the open market from the City-State. Before you blow me off, as not knowing what I am talking about? You might want to check out the test results on the network and remember. They do not fall under our protocols."

Robert was about to make an off-color comment, about the tech base of the Colonials. Then he remembered how a certain Titan captain had messed up, about thinking the Colonials were all a low-tech society. "Commander I will check on that, and as you say. They will not fall under our security protocols. I tend to support whatever my security detail wants for equipment. If you can sell them on it? Then I am fine with it. I just hope the Lord Protector agrees with you, if we leave one behind and it is picked up by the wrong people."

Commander Xi gave a slight smile, but she was looking down at the time, so that Robert could not see it. "Now you brought up about the amount of capital, which you might get from the selling of the Merchant class ship. It has been brought up. That if this was going to be only the first set of supply runs, or even the start of setting up a normal trading route. Then maybe we should leave the left-over funds in some kind of banking account. What are your thoughts about that?"

Robert had been thinking about this, all the way back to when he had closed those accounts. And the looks he got, when he had to have an escort back to the drop port. Even with word of ComStar being upset with them. It was not normal to just shut down accounts on that scale. "I think that would be a good idea, but I see a few problems. One? The bank would have to have offices or agreements with other banks in all of the places that we might travel. The only one that comes to mind, is also the one that has major ties with ComStar. The other problem? It is who will have access to those accounts. They will have to be put on the access roster, when the account is open. I ran into some of this with our Family member, who is acting as our trading Factor."

Robert pulled up a digital form and he sent it over to his boss. "I did a little checking on this, and they do have a password system set up. That way, if someone knows a set of words or phrases? They will have access to the accounts or a certain percentage of the accounts that is set up when the account is activated. They did say that the bank will not reimburse anyone, if any strangers "hack" the words or phrases password. They would prefer, that only people with fingerprints or other biometrics on file have access to the accounts. If we go that way? How would we approach this? And will it violate our protocols? We have the Emma suits, but having "her" show up in too many places might cause some issues we would rather not have to deal with." Robert had Jess use the Emma suit at the beginning of the mission, but it had quickly fallen out of use. Robert had an image of someone in an Emma suit being on two different planets at the same time, and someone on Terra's main office of ComStar seeing it.

Commander Xi nodded, she was not surprised that Robert had already checked into this problem and had an idea on how to address the issue. He had some good points and the money, was SLDF in Exile's money. It was not his right, to risk those funds. Not without input from higher, in case of massive losses.

"That is a good point. I will pass these notes along to higher and see what they think. I want a report with pros and cons sent to me, by the end of the week. I will attach it to my report and keep a copy for our records." She looked up and made eye contact with Robert. He gave her a nod of his head, that said he heard her tasking orders.

Commander Xi made another note, and then moved to a new page. She took a few minutes to review the data, before continuing the meeting. This was a report from SLIC. Robert did not know; he was after all only a captain. That all of the senior people on the resupply runs were watched, and their access to government owned networks was very closely monitored. "Captain Copeland. You have had some time, and I know that you have been checking out intelligence reports on some of the planets in the Inner Sphere. How many did you check out, two hundred star systems? What are you thinking about, as far as a route you might take?"

Robert hit another button and he sent the commander a detailed plan, but he would talk about the highlights. "Commander, your spies are as good as always. But it was closer to a hundred and ten, not two hundred planets. I am thinking about taking the same route to the split point." Robert stopped talking, and he started staring into space lost in thought.

Commander Xi had seen that look before. "What is it Robert? You just had a brainstorm, come on and give it up."

Robert blinked and made eye contact with his boss. "I had been planning on the second jumpship following us around to different planets, just like the Scout had done. We would travel together, until we could find a buyer for the thing. It just hit me. We could take care of two items at once. We load the Merchant with the Rob Roy, and then the Roy can act as an escort for the other jumpship. We use the HPG on the Styx to contact one of the Families. We let them know, that we are on the way and with what we are looking to put on the major item sales market."

Robert had a glazed eye look again, and he worked out a new travel plan. "From the split point? They can travel straight to Canopus IV, and there they can put the two ships up for sale. I take the rest of the convoy on or close to the plan I just sent you. We can start at Ltzehoe. They have a working HPG station and I have a good relationship with the local leadership, minus the ComStar contingent. Then we go to Duniashire and the MMM facility. Then we will meet up with the Rob Roy at Canopus."

Robert was still looking off into space. "It is a capital world, and it should have enough threw traffic to move both ships. It also should have more of the other items we can use. I pick up the skeleton crews from the two other ships, and then we will make our way to Andurien. Andurien is a regional capital, and a major border world for the Free World's League. The way back out will depend on how much cargo I need to finish filling any of my cargo holds."

When Captain Copeland had said the first planet, it had wrung a bell in Commander Xi's brain. She flipped threw a few digital pages, and she found what she was looking for. She looked up snake quick, and the smile she had on now was not very friendly. "Now Robert! You would not want to be going to that one mud ball, because you want to see this Duke Terry person again Query-Affirmative?" Developing a serious relationship with someone from the Inner Sphere was a major breach of The Protocols. Dealing with the Families was different, but it was still not encouraged.

Robert Copeland felt, and he could sense the warning. He needed to be very careful with what he said next. On top of that, he needed to tell the whole truth to his Commander. "Commander, I will not lie. I feel something for the Duke, but I know the rules. I also agree with those rules, to include what the consequences of breaking them are. My reason for stopping there? It is, that we have been able to make some good deals there. When we last left them. I was told that she was looking for mechs and fighters to add to her defense force. I think I can move maybe a light fighter, as well as smaller and less expensive cargos. The ores, meat, and cloth that we pulled from there on the last mission sold well. And she was selling ammunition and other supplies to militias off planet, pirate hunters, and even the ComStar run Com Guards. They were rapidly developing a good cash flow, when we last left. If it does not pan out? Then we will not stop back there on the way home or start there on the next run. I think it will also give anyone looking to follow us, a good place to start that is a decoy."

Commander Xi nodded her head, but she was still eye locked on the Captain. Everything he had said was true, and it all made a kind of sense. After what felt like hours, Xi had looked at it from a few different angles. She could not poke a hole in his logic. "Okay Captain. I will make a note of this, but you might have to defend this data point to higher command."

Robert sat a little straighter in his chair. "I understand Commander. I will do my job, and act according to what is expected of an officer of the SLDF. If I am ordered, to not stop at Ltzehoe? I will obey my orders." He kept is back parade ground straight, while he sat in the chair. "What will I be carrying, as smaller trade and sale items? Having a big bank account is great, but most of the systems may not have access to that network in a timely manner. Am I also to be putting down as time, is a condition on this run?"

Commander Xi hides a smile. It was just like the Robert she remembered. He always was having his mind working on a dozen different things, no matter what else was going on. "I agree with you, and it has worked on every other mission. It would be a good Plan B. If you need it? I have found another 100 old computers of different types, and manufacture. They all work and have been cleaned of anything that might point to us."

She gave a loud snort and shakes her head in disgust. "I do not know how many more computers we will be able to get. They have stopped all production of new home and office computers on New Circe. Their production is going into Battlemech, dropship, tank and aero fighter's fire control systems. With all the additions to our world? The new built in stock supply of new computers, is gone. The secondary rebuilt market is booming, like nobody's business. So much so, that they have started to check out all of the junk piles before my people got there. The Colonials might have something to ship out, but we do not have an official notice yet of anything. Right now, it is more of a rumor and a good hunch that I have."

Before the Commander could continue, Robert jumped in and asked his questions. "So, Query what is the unofficial information?" He did not know if his people were actively spying on the Colonials, but he would have been surprised if they weren't. He had learned many decades ago, that information was power.

Commander Xi looked down her nose at him, because of the interruption. She could not fault him for the question, but she did not want to reward him either for the interruption. It also was the same question, which she had put to her intelligence sections a few weeks ago.

"What happened, is that the Colonial government bought one of the Blazer rifle optics grinders and a few other items. What was a surprise? It was that the manufacturing line is in the only school for higher learning, that the Colonials have been able to so far build. It seems that they had some volunteers come over from Rayson Aerospace. They came down for a long weekend, to help set up the equipment. They also helped them set up a syllabus for between 4 and 6 different types of courses. They have been making Blazer rifles, as fast as they can. It still slower than what a full-time factory would be able to produce. Then again? They are running at least three shifts of classes threw a day. That has got to be helping with the total production numbers."

She shrugged her shoulders. "That is what I am putting my money on, anyway. We have been able to get some more of the Class 5 ultra/lbx HODs cannons to the ground pounders. I can have 200 of the older style ultra-cannons moved over to you. By the time you come back? We should have at least 500 more pulled out of service, and in storage when they green light the third run. And yes, I think that they will do that. That is unless you run into something major."

She stopped talking and looked up from her screen. Something was wrong, she could feel it, like a storm approaching. Commander Xi looked into the face of Robert. His face was white and frozen, like he had just seen a childhood monster. "What is wrong Robert?"

Robert did not say anything for a few long seconds more. He was so lost in thought, that he slipped into speaking like he was on a mission. "Commander? I don't think carrying more than 150 cannons is going to be very wise. Word will get out, very quickly, that we are selling weapons again. 200 weapons would make me a target. And word will get out, that I have a cargo bays stacked to the deck heads with high end weapons. It might be so juicy? That even the great houses would launch one of their first line units, to take the weapons without bothering to pay for them. They will try to take them or blow us out of space, just so that no one else could get their hands on that many top of the line weapons. If we launch a second jumpship or convoy into a different area of space? Maybe they could carry another 100, but I think that 500 is too risky for one load. Now if I had known beforehand. I could have made a deal with say MMM, and they could take a bulk delivery of one type of new weapon. I would like to take some of the older Star League royal Extended Range PPC's, not the snub nose ones. I was thinking of the first-generation extended range weapons. I would like to take 50 of them, on top of a "normal" load of autocannons?"

Commander Xi did not make a comment, but she drummed a pen on her desktop deep in thought. It had been her idea to temporally give the ground forces most of the new production HOD's for the next six months. She had pushed that they would need the older weapons for trade, and that it would make supporting the SLDF as a whole much easier. Supply Command would be losing one whole supporting line from the logistic books. Now she was being told that all of her hard work was wasted. The bad point was that she could see where he was coming from. If they could have a close escort, of say the Black Lion? That would be a totally different animal. A lightly armed and almost unarmored jumpship with a few fighters. They would be so much raw meat on the spit, to a determined space attack force.

"Okay Robert, I will pass that along. As the Commander of the convoy. You will have the final word on what is loaded from the list that we suggest."

Robert nodded to let her know that he heard her, and she went on to the next topic. It was a back and forth for the next two hours. They covered a lot of information, and when Robert had left the room. He had felt, like he had just done a few days on a 2g burn. One bit of good news was that his request for some Colonial made artificial gravity plating had been approved, and it was being fitted onto the Styx while he had been on leave. It was not going everywhere in the ship. In fact, it would not be in any common areas of the jumpship. Or any other place, that might be seen or visited by any strangers that might visit or be inspecting the jumpship. The only areas that would be refitted would be the living quarters on the long ship, with a master "off" switch on the bridge in case of emergency.

 **Notes:**

 **Too much of a good thing**. You want to have product for sale, but not too much product that it will make you a worthwhile target.

 **Colonial weapons vs Inner Sphere Body Armor:** The Colonial weapons were powered by Plot, so it is hard to come up with what they might be able to do in Battletech. That is why I brought up the idea about Military grade ammo vs Civilian grade ammo, to help explain away that plot issue. The military grade ammo would be designed to take out the Model 005 Centurions, so they are armored piercing of some kind.

 **The Hacking Deck**. The Inner Sphere has a few hundred years of playing dirty tricks on each other. They are bound to have come up with things that the Wolverines have not seen before.


	26. Chapter 26 15 Oct 3047

**Chapter 26**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **15 Oct 3047 the second run**

 **New Circe**

Robert was looking around the bridge of his ship. He saw all of the old faces from the last trip. On one side of his chair was Jules, the new ship's commander and now holding the rank of Captain. On Roberts other side was Jess, who was the head of the intelligence section and now officially the third in command of the convoy. Not all of the mission's crewmembers were returning for the second resupply run. This was for two main reasons. One was because of the advance age of some of those veterans, and the second was for money. Then there was the laundry list of other reasons, which would support someone's decision to decline volunteering for the mission. All they "needed" to do was fail a protocol test, and then they would be off the mission. The younger ones would not stay that much longer at home, not with a major war going on around them. They just would be put in the replacement personnel pool, and soon they would be supporting the war effort in other ways. It just would give them some more time off.

Every crewmember had been making a basic salary, for the 9 months that they had been gone from New Circe. That was a pretty nice nest egg to come back to, and then you could add on what they could have spent of their trip's bonus money on items to bring back home. That was enough funds, that it was leading to a good start on an early retirement. The final kicker was the payout from the sale of the items from the general cargo. On all of the other runs? It had taken years to move all the items, without over saturating the market.

It could also be years before anyone could get a share of the profits, after all the bills had been paid to support the resupply run. This time it was "only" 10,000 tons of cargo, with a large number of people to split the cargo across the whole planet. The final major sale had been done three weeks ago. The lowest ranked person in the crew had gotten at least 150,000 SL script bonus, after taxes. Some of the older crewmembers had decided to take the money and relax in style, for a few years. They still would have to do any reserve and special training that they were called to do by the military. But other than that? Many would be spending time with children or grandchildren and fishing poles.

The Merchant class jumpship and a blockade runner going by the name of Rob Roy, it was carrying. All were already attached to the underside of the Tramp class jumpship SLS Styx. The jumpship was already carrying three dropships opposite of the attached unmanned jumpship and her one egg shaped cargo. To more than a few people, who saw the mass of metal, as they flew by in small spaceships. It looked slightly obscene. The heavy hitter in the convoy was still the Leopard CV class modified dropship, called the Hobgoblin. It was carrying the same six fighters, which it had on the last trip to the Inner Sphere.

The second most powerful ship in the fleet, was the Trojan Class Blockade Runner, White Rabbit. This time it had been modified to take in lessons learned from the first trip to the Inner Sphere. The first modification was that it had been outfitted with artificial gravity deck plating in her crew living quarters. This would improve the health and morale of the crew on the almost year long trip. The second modification had been the slight reduction in cargo space, to fit two squads worth of infantry bays within her freshly painted hull.

The last major modification was a bit harder to notice, and it had taken the longest to accomplish of all of the major modifications. Now every access point on the ship had been modified in some very unusual ways. This was done to hopefully counter any future run-ins with anymore ComStar supplied or black-market Hacking Decks. Each hatchway had been loaded with modified software, and a few new physical devices hidden from even a detailed inspection. If anyone made it that far and still wanted to keep pressing their luck? They would have a high-powered shock plate to get physically over. The Navy staff had taken all of the AARs findings very seriously, and the input of those personnel involved in the mission. Then a few of them had spent some brainstorming time at the main bar of Pirate Pete's.

The third and last dropship on this mission was the Mule class dropship called Lisbon Maru. She also had been modified like the blockade runner, Carrier, and the jumpship. She also lost some cargo space to carry two squads of infantry or marines and the modified access control points, as well as gravity plates in the sleeping spaces.

All of that work had not been cheap, and the work had been rated at the topmost priority for the whole fleet. The modification had been a last-minute addition, as far as modifying spaceships went. They had been moved to the top of the priority list, as soon as the second resupply run had been green lighted. If not maybe just a little before and hidden from the budget people on the Station. That the modifications could be done on the planet and did not need to use the limited space on the Station, helped conceal this work.

This time the supply run was not kept secret, from the rest of the planet. This was better in some ways, and not so good in other ways. At least this time? They would not have to travel out to the "normal" jump points, before they started the run. They would be starting the trip, right here at the L 1 point near the planet. The downside was that he was getting about a dozen messages an hour, demanding that they make room for someone not on the approved list. Clan Wolverine knew that the ships belong to the SLDF Navy, but most in the Colonies did not grasp this little bit of data. It was not how the refugees from the Colonies of Kobal, were used to both doing business and reality. That was how they saw it from their point of view.

The new jump location was one of the changes, he had suggested. That along with the addition of the gravity plating had been his ideas. Higher command had not taken all of his ideas, as easily as those two. They had not given in on getting one of the longer ranged DRADIS systems fitted into the jumpship. They also did not let him take one of the few Mammoth class dropships, much less the even larger but even fewer within the SLiE Behemoth class dropship. The rumor mill had said that they were still looking at the idea for using the Mammoth in the future, but not near future.

They could still bring back a little less than 10,000 tons of cargo, but that seemed like a lot of work for just one payout. Robert was working on some ideas on how to improve both his defenses and cargo lifting power of the ships under his command. In one of the last meetings, he had fielded a few more of those ideas to Commander Xi. The reception had been positive, at least about the core of his ideas. He had been given the green light to see what he could make happen on his own, and that he could keep off of the books until his next AAR.

The one thing that had been Okayed, was the upgrading of the main weapons in the Tramp Class jumpship to a front-line tech level. A precedent had been set with the sending of first generation of the extended ranged weapons on the last mission. The same rules would apply to the clan tech ER large laser. They would only be able to be fired at "normal" first generation ER weapons range. This would give him a nice hold card, if things went sideways. In one of the books he had brought back on the last trip, it had showed that new Tramp Class ships were being built. Not only were new ships of that class coming off of maybe two different production lines. They were outfitted with Star League extended ranged large lasers and anti-missile systems. At least that was the reason he was given for the upgrade. He had no idea about the ship out of time and the possible future.

Robert thought, that some of the readers of those reports might have had to be sent to the nearest hospital when they found out that the Inner Sphere also was beginning to outfit ships with Lithium-Fusion Battery systems in place of the cargo areas. That was going to help with the cover story, on why the Styx could not carry the 3,000 tons of cargo she should be able to. Now all they would have to do, was to keep the cover story intact.

This got Robert to thinking about what he was carrying for trading or selling on this trip. They had to sell the newly repaired Merchant class jumpship M/V Altmark, which the Styx had recovered. It along with the Trojan class dropship Rob Roy, would bring a huge capital advantage. That is, if they could find someone to sell them to. They also were carrying smaller items that would be easier to move, but they also would not bring as much in trade as one lump sum. They had one hundred office computers in space safe boxes, along with 100 old late Star League ultra-class 5 auto cannons. For the first time, they were also going to be carrying 50 late Star League tech extended range PPCs. Every one of them had been made before the Exodus. They were found in Cache sites or pulled off of the surviving machines from the time of them fleeing the rest of clan space. Clan Wolverine had not made that type of weapon since around 2825.

These autocannons were not as used, as the first set they had carried. They still were well used by the SLDF ground, aero fighters, and dropships. They were also going to try to sell the fighters the Hobgoblin carried. Robert had pointed out, when they got back, that if they sold them all? They would be almost defenseless. This time? Six additional heavy fighters that had been pulled out of the cache sites on the far side of the planet, were loaded as extra cargo on one of the dropships. They would join the wrecked Vulcan fighter in a cargo bay, in stackable cradles copied from the ones used to transport trucks. As the older fighters were sold or traded? One of the stored fighter craft would be brought out and it would replace the sold craft on defense duty.

The SLDF in Exiled supplied items, were not the only items packed down in the cargo bays on two of the dropships. The Colonials had also added some items to trade. Those had been cleared by the leadership in both camps, and they had agreed that they would not risk anyone finding out who they had come from. A set of 100 over and under pistols and 100 of their marine rifles with 100 rounds of ammunition per weapon, were packed down in easily disposable shipping crates.

It was not known how they would sell to the rest of the Inner Sphere, so only two tons of cargo space had been allocated to them. If they sold well? The rest of the old and removed from service Colonial projectile weapons would be sold to the Inner Sphere on any follow up runs. Only a few would be kept back for research and possible placement in museums or private collections. Few Colonials thought that they would still be useful as front line weapons in 5 to 6 years anyway. At least this way, they would generate some income for the city state.

These old weapons were joined by 100 new built Blazer rifles. Each weapon had been checked by a SLDF armorer and cleared to be fully functional. This had not gone over well with the Colonial in charge of the school, which had made them in the first place. Then 10 of the heavy weapons had failed to work and had needed to be sent back to the school for repair. The Colonial instructors had turned almost purple, and they had not said a word that Robert could hear. Robert had no idea they could have that many Blazer rifles to trade, but that was what was loaded. He was betting that more than one person in the Military of the Colonials was not happy about that large of a number of those things being sent off planet. It was not his place to care. Every laser weapon they sold, was one that was not in the hands of the Colonial military. But it was more money to buy other things that the Colonial Military very badly needed.

Having supplies from two different groups would make his and his limited staff's job a lot harder. Now he had to keep two complete sets of books on what was sold and what was bought. The results of the sales of those items would be used to acquire items, which the Colonial government had listed out as things they wanted. He also would have to make sure that the inventories would have to be watched very closely. Then again, that was why each cargo capable ship under his command had a designated Cargo Master.

Robert gave a slight snort as his mind played over what was on the shopping list on this run. The one good thing going for the Colonials. It was that Admiral Adama, was not a fool. He knew they did not have much in the way of trade goods to buy stuff. Bill, with Robert, had arranged for a private tour of the Styx not long after the impressively long list had been set to his office. The Colonial had explained what was not in the memo that Robert had been given. The Admiral had told Robert the priority for anything that the funds their items might make, were to be used on. It was a lot shorter of a list than "The Official" list. He had brought a digital copy of one of the books that Robert had brought back. It took him a few minutes to fine the images that he was looking for. He was not used to using a Star League type of computer interface.

First on the list was a combat engineer vehicle, the book gave it a list price of around 460,000 C-bills. Next on his wish list, was a Karnov UR VTOL Transport. It was listed at 550,000 C-Bills coming new off the production lines. He also asked about watercraft that could be good for light protection duties on rivers and maybe close ocean work. Robert reminded the Colonial that both items were not that high tech of an item to acquire, and that they might be of limited combat utility. Admiral Adama had not said a word, but he just looked over the rim of his glasses at Robert.

After a few long seconds of quiet. Bill Adama had started talking about the different types of books, that if he can find them. They would like a copy of. It was a broad range of books, which went from history, to religious, to technical manuals. The Admiral made sure to point out. That the books were a distant third on the list of things he wanted, and his people needed. Anything after that was well down on the list of priorities. When the Colonial military officer left the Styx? Robert would write in his journal, about how impressed he was with the craggy faced man. He understood why the Colonial Military had given him the command of a battleship and the rest of their fleet without batting an eye. When his people recovered, and he was still viable. He was going to be hell on the space ways, like something out of a holovid.

The odd items that the Colonial had wanted, was added to the wish list, minus the books, to the overall list. The list from Robert's people was basically the same as he had been given on the first run, but all of the Jumpship parts had been removed. It was felt that they did not need to add anymore to the story that the first run had started. Their dossier should now be well established. The parts they had brought back, and had not been used on the Merchant, had been modified to support other of the older SLDF support ships. In place of those parts, was added what Robert, Jules and Jess all thought was really damn dangerous. When he had brought this up to Commander Xi? She had locked his heels and told him that it was needed. He had no idea why Elizabeth Anne Ngo from Kowloon was so important, but he would do his best to "Find every scrap of data on her".

According to the information they now had from the books and consolidated into a formal brief by SLIC. It was found out that maybe a clan unit called Wolf's Dragoons, was in operation around the Inner Sphere. That unit had seen major combat in the House Marik civil war, which had happened back in 3014. Robert had been directed to try to buy one of the lost Wolf's Dragoons mechs that might have been salvaged. They did not just want any mech, that might have been bought somewhere in the Inner Sphere and used by that mercenary group. They wanted only the ones from a list, which were known to be only used by Clans and lost to the great houses for over 100 years. If he could find this small item, and then bring it back to the big brain types. It would be taken apart and checked against known clan manufactory techniques and other marks and stamps. Ones that Clan Wolverine had in data files and in some cases, examples were in storage.

Robert looked out the massive armored windows of his ship. The area around the L 1 was very quiet, compared to the space around the different orbits in the local space around the planet. The main ships for both the Colonial Navy and the Star League in Exile's Navy, were getting ready for a major movement of their own. Rumor had it, that they were planning on a deep raid into Cylon controlled space. Robert was not "in the know" but it looked like they were bringing the heavy hammer down on the thinking machines. This attack force would be home before he and his people would be able to, unless they were dead.

Robert saw one of the crewmember's float threw the hatch and pulled herself down into a chair. Robert now was back into the real world. He was still wondering, if not outfitting the command and weapons areas with the Colonial made artificial gravity plating was a good idea or not. With a shake of his head, he got his mind into the right head spacing. "Okay, Jules. What do you say? Let's get the wheel rolling one more time."

Robert pushed a button that activated the communication line to all of the crewed ships. "To all crews, on all ships. We are about to start our run. All protocols are now fully enforced. We have a job to do, and all of our people are counting on us. We will not let them down. The jump clock is set at two hours, before our first jump."

Robert cut the line and nodded to the new Captain of the modified jumpship Styx. Jules took the nod and gave his own commands. In 2 hours and 10 seconds. Over half a million tons of jumpship, dropship, cargo, and crew were gone. It happened when the newly checked out, but very old jump drive system that had been built into the 660m long jumpship had ripped it out of one part of space and put it in another.

Felix looked out of the bridge of his new command. The bridge of "his" ship was well forward of the massive aft mounted rotating ring. He was watching the ugly, to his eyes, mass of metal as it winked out of this system. Just as the ship so ugly only her captain could love her, had left this star system. He reached down and scratched his new leg. He still thinks that it is longer than his old one. And it seemed to always tingle at the oddest of times.

Felix Gaeta had taken over this ship, after her old master decided that he had enough of space and combat. He had taken over and started working with the SLDF Navy Tug Wrench and another SLDF made and crewed cargo dropship. All of the specialized personnel were living in the open cabins that this ship had, and at one time had held high paying customers.

At first the other two working vessels, had just been "tied" to the outer hull of the Colonial made ship. After their return with the first "found" wreck. Three Dropship collars were attached to the port side outer hull. There were now 4 collars, and the same two helper dropships were still working with her. Felix had just signed off on the plan to extend that number to 8 SLiE style docking collars. He was looking forward to taking on a different mission. But only after they had removed the dangers of the Cylons from finding any "lost" technology, which could give them an advantage over the rest of the human race. Soon his ship would start to have some teeth, but that was going to be a little further down the road. Soon his ship would have weapons pulled off of some of the salvaged ships she was finding. The more lost ships that his crew recovered. The sooner his vessel would get some "real" weapons.

The first jump of the Styx was using the standard drive, as a final test of its last rebuilding cycle. One hour, after arriving at the point safely. All systems were charged, and the Colonial made drive was brought online. With a quick goodbye transmitted to the nearby Magellan class jumpship, the Styx was gone again. With all of the engines tested. They now were going 15 light years an hour. At the end of a dozen hours of travel? They had traveled almost 200 light years from their home star system. As with before. They spend the rest of the "day" at rest to give their people a break and to check out all the ships systems. Before they would do it again the next day. It did not take them long to get into a pattern of jumping for 12 hours and then standing fast for 12 hours in orbit around some star.

The modified Leopard would be leading on the 4th day of traveling, and from then on. On the last trip they were only traveling eight hours a day and going farther with each jump. The math said they could make longer jumps, but Robert was not going to push the engines this early if he did not have to. Due to better planning, or maybe it was just better luck. The odd collection of moving metal did not run into any strangers, all the way to the split point.

 **Notes:**

 **Mission focus.** This trip will be a more of a blend of Intel gathering as well as supply gathering. Now that SLIC knows what questions to ask. They can be more active in sending RFIs (request for information).

 **Making the Blazer Rifles**. Most of the first few runs would not be useable for the field. The instructors and students would both be learning at the same time. The test is still in the early phases on whether to field these weapons to any Colonial personnel. Right now, it is just another squirrel or shiny object for people to look at.


	27. Chapter 27 2 Nov 3047

**Chapter 27**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **2 Nov 3047 the second run**

 **Split star system**

The Styx and her luggage arrived in the system, which was now labeled as the Split system on SliE's and Colonial navigation charts. The timing for the arrival was set, so that it was still early on the ship's clock. As soon as the Colonial made jump engines were shut down on the Styx. Crews started pouring out of the larger jumpship, like a disturbed beehive. Some of the space suited personnel were not taking in the securing lines. They were boarding the smaller Merchant class jumpship, and the Blockade Runner she was carrying attached to her long thin spine.

This time both conventional jump engines were already charged, when they got to this lonely star system. The reason for the almost rush? It was to throw off anyone, who might be looking for where Commander Copeland and his ships had gone. SLIC was taking operational security very seriously. The right or wrong people would know when the Styx had last left Ltzehoe, and they "knew" what a ship of that class could do. They would assume certain numbers, and those numbers would be wrong, very wrong. People were going to be spending years looking at travel times, jumps, and planets visited on the run that Copeland had done. The new and unknown technology along with some subterfuge was going to make it harder to track the Styx, than it had been to track the Exodus of the old and original Star League military back in 2784.

The engineers on both jumpships were given an 8-hour shift to report any issues back to the convoy commander. On the Styx. Only one department was not tasked with helping in anyway with taking care of the huge number of thick cables, which were being pulled back into the Styx as fast as they could. That would be the five person HPG team working in their special little room buried so deep within the Tramp's hull, that they were next to the jump cores. They had their specially modified HPG gear set first in passive mode, and the high-tech machine did its job. The Styx was on what was called the HPG bubble, for four different worlds. A target system was selected from those four possible candidates, and a message was slipped into the communications traffic by the highly skilled team.

The message used the proper ComStar codes, but it had a fake originating code. This new message was just one more bit of data in a still small but rapidly growing stream of the stuff. No issues were reported to the Convoy commander, and at the end of that inspection time. Both interstellar ships winked out of space within ten seconds of each other and reappeared at that same interval. They did not come back into "normal" space in the same spot, just as they had planned. Using the "normal" Inner Sphere designed interstellar drive. The energy wave of the Styx was picked up even before the ship was out of the Split system. It was picked up by traffic control of a world at the edge of what the local groups called the Periphery.

Jules looked up from his screens and turned to his boss. "Commander! We are in the Ltzehoe system. All ships report secured from jump."

Robert let a smile creep onto his face. "Thank you, Captain. Please contact the local traffic control. Let them know that we are here, and that we would like to land."

The bridge of the Styx was in Zero g and people were floating in and out of the space at seemingly random intervals. The powerful Radio was the "only" way to send messages between the jump point and planet, and it could "only" move at the speed of light. There was a clock mounted with a large display that was counting down to the earliest that a message would be able to make it back to them. The numbers went to all zeros, and then started to climb as the seconds ticked by. Robert was starting to wonder if something was wrong, when the large wall mounted timer hit pulse 20 minutes. Then the static in the background provided by the built-in speakers changed, and you could see the people start to relax around the command center of the jumpship.

A female voice that was a lot younger than Duke Terry's came over the old looking speakers. "Merchant Vessel Styx, this is Ltzehoe traffic control. Welcome back! The Duke said that when you are settled in, and the paperwork is done. That she owes you a dinner. She welcomes and approves you, and your escort all the way to the drop port whenever you're ready. Please contact traffic control, when you reach orbit for final landing clearance."

Jules and Jess's heads snapped up and over to look at Commander Copeland. Something was wrong. Duke Terry had known about the light carrier, which this mission had as an escort. The last two times they had been here, they had not needed it. The White Rabbit was never addressed as "escort", it was just another cargo carrier to most people. Robert made eye contact with each of his key staff members, and he gave a slight nod. That was all that needed to be "said" to show that he understood their concern. He held down the transmit button on his armrest.

"Traffic Control. We will be starting our burn in a few hours, with three dropships. We will contact you when we are in high orbit. Please pass along to the Duke. That we are looking forward to working with her again." Robert released the radio transmit button, to cut the line.

Jess, as the head of the intelligence section, was the first to speak. "Sir? Something must have happened. Do you think that she had a falling out of some kind with the local ComStar staff?"

Jules had his own ideas. He had the disadvantage of having not met, must less spent any time with Duke Terry. "It could be that. Or someone wants to separate the Hobgoblin and her fighters, from covering the Styx."

Robert was listening to both of them, but he had his own ideas. "I don't think you have anything to worry about, Jules. We have been able to get readings for the whole system. There are no ships at the other jump points, or anywhere else in this system. I think that your extended ranged large lasers and anti-missile systems should keep any unwanted guests away. I do think that something is going on dirt side, and she is giving us a warning about it."

Robert stopped talking and started slowly rubbing his chin. "I already said that we would be on our way. But do we? Or do we charge our drive, and move along?" Robert did not say anything for almost a minute. Jules was in command of the jumpship, but he was in overall command of this mission. It was going to be his call.

"Okay Jules, you're in charge out here. I'm going to be taking all three dropships with me. You know what to do, if things go sideways on us." He was the Fleet commander, and he had decided what the next move was going to be, and his orders were final.

Robert did not wait for the Captain of the Styx to say anything. Robert undid his safety straps and pushed off and up from this fix mounted command chair. He was floating to the hatch and was almost out of the hatch and into the corridor, by the time Jess could start the same maneuver. They were having to find a balance between the gravity plates and keeping up their 0g skills. So far it had been a steep learning curve.

In a little under 90 minutes, all three dropships were on their way to the life-giving world almost a week's travel away. The nice thing about the trip? It was that the gravity deck plating could be turned off on all the ships, as they used their engine thrust to maintain one normal g level of gravity. The only time they were in zero g? It was for about two minutes that was needed to flip the ships end over end, so that they could now slow down and fall into orbit around the targeted planet.

The three ships had just stopped 22,500 miles directly over the only permanent drop port on the planet. From the geosynchronous orbit, every eye that was on duty was looking to see if there were any threats in the surrounding area. Robert was about to call down for a second time about landing clearance, after they had been in that location for two hours. He was surprised, that an encrypted data packet was sent up for his eyes only. It would take a single key word to open the message. It took Robert and Jess almost an hour before they worked it out. They were just lucky that the message did not have an auto erase function if the wrong password was used.

The password had turned out to be Jagermech, what Duke Terry had asked them to bring some spare parts for. The message was still short, but very important. In the message. It told them that they might want to keep the Leopard CV in high orbit over the planet, and on alert. She told him, that Copeland Supply, Salvage and Resale was not very popular with ComStar and the groups that worked with them. She did not know if they would try something. But she wanted to warn them ahead of time, just in case.

Jess took a copy of the message. She would keep it with her files, for all the reports that had to be done as a requirement by higher command. Robert ordered the Hobgoblin to launch and maintain combat air patrol day and night. It would be made up of one fighter out and one ready to go. He did not pass along the warning Duke Terry had sent them. Too many transmissions or a very long transmission between the two ships, would have been picked up by certain ground stations. That was still a risk, even using the whisker thin laser coms each ship was outfitted with.

When ground side traffic control gave them permission to land, it was about 3 and a half hours after the three ships had made it into high orbit. The trip from 22,500 miles up to ground level was only another half hour of traveling, thanks to the powerful plasma thrusters mounted on the bottom of two of the craft. The two cargo dropships were directed to land at two open fire baked points next to each other. Not one word was said about the smaller dropship staying in orbit. The drop port was not empty. It had another two dropships that looked like spots from high orbit. One was another spheroid and the other was a more aerodynamic shaped ship.

After the two new arrivals had cooled down and the great ships were refueled by large multi-wheeled tankers. Robert was able to use the White Rabbit's systems to check out the other two dropships on the space port's ground. One was a Mule class ship that just looked a little "to normal" to Robert's well-trained eye. The other ship was a burn marked, massive tank and infantry carrying Triumph class ship. While he was watching what was going on at the rural drop port. A radio message was sent to the Blockade Runner. It was a message that said Duke Terry was on her way over to have a meeting with him and Jess. Robert sent a reply that they would be ready to have a meeting on board the dropship. Robert order the side arms broken out and the weapons turrets fully manned, as soon as he had sent the reply message.

One hour later a very stylish hover car, that Robert had never seen before came into view from around a new built warehouse at the near edge of the drop port. It was not moving that fast, and it was not because it could not cover the km's very quickly. The reason for the slow speed, was the pair of escorts for the sedan. Trailing behind the hover car was a pair of walking combat machines. It did not take but a heartbeat for Robert to identify them as a 65ton JagerMech model JM6-S and a 50ton Enforcer model ENF-4R. Two machines that you would not expect to see in this part of space. That did not mean, that they were not effective and very dangerous machines. It was just that they were an odd pair to be see on this side of the MC.

All of the weapons turrets, on all the ships, were manned and armed. The pilots of the machines might not know that, all of the fire control systems were in passive mode. Still they did stop at about the same mark, which Robert had called out before, when they had been here selling things on the last run as a "fire line". The nice-looking hover car continued the rest of the way to the open personnel hatch without an escort. Robert was waiting on the ship's side of the access ramp hatch. He was not alone, Jess was there and two very large, and mean looking escorts. The escorts were not failed out infantry. On this trip only the best of a growing pool of trained and successful infantry were assigned to be the close ranged protectors of life and ships.

Duke Terry was alone and had a sly smile on, when she saw the two escorts standing next to the older man. She had popped out of her hover car like some kind of mutant jackrabbit, and she had almost jogged up the narrow loading ramp. "Robert, what you don't trust me!? I'm hurt! I thought we were friends?" The tone was lighthearted and was matched with a gleaming smile.

Robert held out his hand and he had his salesmen smile on bright. "We are Duke, but I was not so sure about your little escort you brought along today. I don't know of many people who feel the need to have over a 100tons of heavy firepower as an escort, for a Sunday drive to see an old friend. I think wars have been started over something a lot less."

Terry gave a bright beaming smile to both Robert and Jess. "So, do you like them? Don't tell anyone. But I never thought I would have one back in operation, much less both of them."

Robert did not say anything, he just pointed towards the briefing room. You never knew if someone with a directional mic might be pointing it your way. They only had to go up two levels to the modified briefing room. As soon as they had their seats, and the cool air was starting to combat the heat that they had brought in on their bodies. The meeting was ready to start.

Robert was at the head of the table and started talking. It was an icebreaker, and the whole room knew it. "So, Terry how have you been? By the looks of your escorts, some things have changed while we were gone these last seven months."

Terry looked relaxed rocking back and forth in the overstuffed office chair. "I used some of what I traded with you to get them up and running. They proved a surprise, when we had our last pirate raid. We think they were slavers, but we did not keep any of them alive to find out. After my twin thumpers, out there, put down three bug mechs before you could say boo? They pulled back, too fast for my pair of big boys to catch them before they lifted off."

Terry had a lost look in her eyes as she recounted the battle. "My militia was able to ambush two companies of vehicles. The two tanks you helped us make operational were able to take out a Saladin and a lucky mobility kill on a Pegasus hover tank. When the rest of the unit pulled back from that ambush? They left a Packrat, two wheeled APCs, a Swift Wind Scout car, and a Ferret scout VTOL that had engine issues. Anything that could not keep up, was left on the field. The rest were hover craft and again outran my people to their dropship. I can tell you. That they did not stick around to pick up anything that fell behind. As you say. Over a 100tons of mechs can make for a very impressive first, second, and third impression."

They were picked up by what we think was a Merchant class jumpship. We had no idea it was there, until what we think was a lightly loaded modified Union locked back onto it." She reached out and took a glass of water that was in front of her. "If you had not brought those parts, or had those weapons we used or traded to get more parts? My people would have been slaughtered." Her voice was cracking a little, and you could feel that she was still shaken about the event.

Robert wanted to give her a brake, and to let Jess catch up on the magnitude of what had happen while they were gone. "That is impressive. It's also impressive how you can support two mechs that are mainly Federated Sun machines, all the way out here. I know that it took me months just to find those few tons of parts I traded to you. Well parts that were not so over price, that I think they were drinking heatsink fluid when they told me the asking price."

Terry took another sip of water and made a face. "Robert, the sun has gone over the yard arm somewhere. Can we have something besides water?"

Jess almost choked on her own water. She had heard Colonel Tigh say exactly the same thing, but in an odd mix of Greek called Kobalian. Robert just smiled and ordered beer and wine to be brought to the meeting room. Both would be coming from his own limited stock, since they had not made any port calls to refill the ships general use stocks.

While they waited, Terry started talking again. "Robert the reason you had problems finding those types of parts. It was that you don't know who to ask, in the first place. We are close enough to the Cappies, and it's helpful if you know the right people. The Cappies don't like the Fed Rats one little bit. But they lost so much to them over the last few decades? Now, they have to use whatever they have on hand or can beg, borrow, or steal. It is not politically correct, to rely on the old Federated Sun machines for defense against the FedSuns or now the FedCom. So, they send them to the other edge of their space. That is where they are just happy to have a few battlemechs, and it does not matter their pedigreed or the planet of manufacture. That is where I was getting my parts, when I could afford it, and one of their ships would stop by. Most of the time I would trade them Bug mech parts I could get from MMM or another supplier. Everyone has bug mechs, and if you don't tell the Cappies that they were from a FedSun's factory. They will be very willing to trade with you. You just have to make sure the right places are acid washed." Terry gave another soft chuckle.

She stopped making any sounds when someone knocked on the metal hatch, then opened. It was the beer and wine. Bottles and glasses were set out and poured, but only Terry took a long sip of a New Dawn sweet and ice-cold white wine. Robert and Jess were sticking with plain water, they did not even have to explain that it was still early in their duty shift.

Robert could tell that Terry was back in more control, after sucking down half a glass of the sweet white wine. When she sat the glass down, Jess tried to get her talking again. "That make sense, but now it sounds like you were able to get a good bit of salvage. If it's not a state secret. What did you do with what the pirates left behind, after you planted your boot upside their heads?"

Terry looked at Jess over the fine cut glass wine cup. "I was able to temp hire a few more good techs from a mercenary unit, that was recovering between some long travel legs. They were able to use most of the parts to get a pair of Wasps back in order. It cost me what was left of the Stinger we brought down. I was able to keep the engine, and a medium laser, but the mercenary techs got what was not needed to get the two Wasps up and running."

She now was beaming a tooth filled smile again. "So, Robert. I finally have my ground lance that I wanted. It was a lot earlier, then I had thought I could get that job done. I also was able to save the Saladin and the Pegasus. I wanted to make sure that next time, someone would not be able to run so fast that we could not follow them. I was able to use the funds from autocannon ammunition sales to repair the two track APC's and the Swift Wind. The Packrat and the Ferret were too far gone to repair." Her smile went evil, as she was talking. "They did give up some spare parts, which have proven to be very useful for the militia."

Jess was covertly recording and taking notes like a mad woman. She was looking down and then back up and took another step down the information highway. "Well Duke Terry. That puts you well on the way to having a full armored Battalion to support. You also have a nice medium weight mech lance." She knew she had said something wrong, when both Robert and Terry had moved snake quick to look at her. She did not know what she had said that had been wrong, but she was smart enough to close her mouth and wait.

Terry had pain in her eyes, again. "Yes Jess, who uses the name Emma and a fat suit to send messages at the ComStar compound. It only cost me thirty people dead, and another hundred hurt to one degree or another. Yes, I would agree that we are well on the way for a nice little planetary defense force." The tone was beyond ice cold. It was just this side of a nonverbal threat.

Robert jumped into the situation that was looking like it could turn ugly. He needed to help his fellow officer, who had not spent that much time with other combat leaders outside of her home planet. "What Jess was referring to, Terry, was that you have done a lot to help protect your people in a very short amount of time." He shot a look at Jess that said for her to keep her Fraking mouth shut, for the rest of the meeting. Jess turned a little pink and kept her mouth shut.

Terry slowly turned back to face Robert, and her back visibly relaxed some. "We have, and it is in no small part thanks to you and your people Robert. After the attack. I was able to force threw some short-term tax increases, which allowed me to quickly expand our ammunition manufacturing. I am proud to say. That my little planet can now supply LRM, SRM, machine gun, and general class 2, 5, 10 and 20 autocannon ammunitions. We are the go-to resupply point, for almost 75 light years around us. If you need expendable ordnance? We are the place to come."

The smile was back, and she did a double rise of her eyebrows. "We had to add two work shifts to the ammo factories just to keep up with the demand going off planet. I know you are wanting to ask, but you are still working on how to get around to it. No, the Com Guards did not come out to help us during that last pirate attack. We still have been selling ammunition to them, and once to a returning Explorer Corps unit that was almost a full battalion. We don't know what they got into, but they had very low ammunition reserves when they came calling."

Robert now was concerned. Did Terry blame them, as the reason that the Com Guards did not come to help them defend against the pirate attack? "I'm sorry to hear that Terry. I hope it was not something we had done, that has caused the issues?"

Terry now was not smiling at Robert, but she also did not have a threatening look on her face. It was more neutral, but not still. "No, Robert. You might have pushed it forward some, but it was always in the cards and I knew it. Oh, by the way? Our favorite ComStar Demi Percenter? He was recalled about a month, after you left. I don't know if that was good or bad news. His replacement is, well call it indifferent. They have increased the number of ships and units coming through my system, by about fifty percent. And I have been selling more and more ammunition, every week to them. I don't know how long that will last. The reports of pirate raids have started to drop off. They have a long way to go until they are back to the decade average, but it is getting there. And as long as they are buying ammo? I will keep taking their money and just keep planning for a rainy day."

She took a very small sip of her wine. "I am going to make as much money as I can, while it last. We have even grown in population. It started just before your first visit by the way, but it has really picked up lately. We now have about half a million people living under my authority. We have some new mines working full time to support the new or expanded ammunition factories. We have more farms in production to supply food to everyone. I have opened more schools manned by only locals or people moving here from less prosperous systems. ComStar does not like change or growth, unless it is their growth and they have a finger buried deep into the education system."

Terry stopped talking again and took a longer sip of wine. "Robert? Did you know that between the landing fees, items that we are selling to transient units, and our export ammunition sales? That I am clearing almost a million c-bills a month, in pure profit on average?"

Robert did not know any of this, because the SLDF in Exile did not send people all the time into the Inner Sphere without some very important reasons. He decided to try to cover his lack of current knowledge of what was going on locally. "I had heard that you were doing well, and I saw the new warehouse on the edge of the drop port. What are you going to do, next?" He had a feeling that Terry was not just content on letting things stay static, for too long.

Terry did not say anything for a heartbeat. "I changed the laws, and if anyone wants to buy heavy weapons of any kind out of their own pocket? I'm okay with it, as long as they spend one weekend a month or more working with the militia with those heavy weapons. I won't even charge an import tax on those heavy weapons. By the end of the month? We will have four brand new LRM carriers, four Bulldog tanks, and two SRM carriers. All NOT paid for out of my defense budget! I even have been able to retire those half assed gun trucks, that made up the militia's light armored company from before I was born."

The beaming smile was back on Terry's face. "I was hoping that you would come back. I was putting a lot of the extra money away, sometimes using it as credit for others to keep it growing. But only if I could be able to pull it out quickly in case, I needed it. Do you still want to sell some of those Aero Fighters?"

Robert and Jess smiled. It was just as the pair of them had discussed about one of the reasons to stop here. Now for the second reason, that she wanted the Hobgoblin closer. Robert let his salesmen smile show on his face. "Duke Terry! Yes, we do. What were you looking at? I have a wide selection of fighters for sale."

Terry rocked back in her comfortable chair. "That is a good question. I was first thinking I would like something fast, like a light fighter to chase down raiders. If you did not come back, after a while. I was thinking about contacting MMM and picking up a lance of the Sabers that they make. Then I got to thinking, one night. What would they do if they caught those raiders? I don't think light fighters would do much against a medium sized raiding dropship, like that Union. Do you still have those Vulcans for sale?"

Robert was following every word she was saying, and she picked the craft that fit what he thought she would use best. Besides it was the pair of craft he wanted to get rid of first, anyway. "Yes, I do, Terry. I have to remind you that the second Vulcan airframe, is not flight worthy. I don't even know if you could repair it, or not. I have been showing it as just a parts donor craft."

Terry smiled and her white teeth showed. "I remember. So, what is it going to cost me for the pair? We are talking about a bank transfer and not cash this time, I'm sorry to say. It will be drawn off of The Bank of The Magistracy, so you should have no problem converting it."

Robert put his hand flat on the table. "Okay Terry, I can deal with that. We have been able to change a few of the rules that we were working under on our last visit. I want five million for the operational fighter and three million for the second one, for a total of eight."

Terry's face did not move one millimeter, and her voice was flat as glass. "Not likely Robert. Four for the one in orbit and two for the wreck, for a total of six million C-Bills."

Robert let his face go bland, but he was jumping up and down on the inside. The bets back home, were that those two ancient 80ton fighters were only good for recycling for their base metals. He knew one of Admiral Frank's staff had said that if Robert got 100k for the pair? He would be looking at charges of theft to be filed against him by the unfortunate locals. Six million in almost SL script? That was a lot more than 100k. When they got back home, someone was going to be eating a member of the Rook family for dinner.

"Okay Terry, you have a deal. You can have the one crated frame, this afternoon. I need to keep the other one, until we get ready to leave. The day we lift? I will have it land with a full load of ammunition, along with a Mark VII landing boat bringing down what we have left of spare parts. I do know that we don't have much left that will fit them. Maybe a few tons that are Vulcan specific, but you will get everything we have. I know it will not be enough to get the second frame ready to use, but it might help until you can find someone who has more parts that will fit them."

Terry held out her hand and shook both Robert's and Jess's hand, sealing the deal. "Now, I would like to take you both to dinner tonight at my place." She already had four people's names that had come to the top of her head that would work at putting butts in those cockpits. It would take longer to find a person to supply them with parts, than it would to work out who would be behind those controls. She was counting on the second craft being repairable. She had just spent enough money to buy 4 new built Sabers with a small support package.

She looked around and both nodded that they would like to have dinner with her. Terry now sat taller in her office chair. "Now back to work. As the head of the local government. Are you going to be offering any items for sale, while you're on planet? If so, can you give me a list and a starting price on the items you're looking to move while you are here?"

Now it was Jess who would have input into the meeting. It would give her an opportunity to recover from putting her foot in her mouth, all the way to the hips. She reached into a folder and passed over the thin plastic sheet. "Duke Terry! This is the list of items we are looking to move. At the top of the list are the fighters, but you can let them know that the Vulcans are now not for sale. Next, we have Star League KWI type cannons, new built Blazers rifles, and a dozen high end office computer systems. We think they are about as powerful as the ones we sold on our last trip, but we cannot guarantee that."

What was not on this list were the second generation PPC's. Robert had pulled those off of this list for some reason. Jess thought, that he was thinking about needing them for defense of the ships. That would be a breach of written orders, but a fleet commander had historically been given a lot of leeway when they were away from the flagpole.

Duke Terry sat up even taller in the chair and looked at the sheet of plastic. She pulled out a pen from her jacket pocket and lined out the area that had the fighters she had just agreed to buy. She had a slight grin on her face. "I see the price listed. Will I be able to do some trading like you did with me on the last visit?" She went fishing on what the rules might be. Besides it never hurt to ask. What was the worst he could say… no?

Robert let the corners on his mouth drop some. "I'm sorry, Terry. At this point and time. We need capital or items from our list, that our clients want or need." On cue Jess passed over two additional sheets of printed plastic.

Robert went into professional mode, as Terry took the pages and started looking at them. "Duke, you may post this as you see fit. You don't have a centralized information network, but we will not be hiding what we are looking for."

Duke Terry was going down the list, line by line. It was an extensive list, no matter how you looked at it. As she was reading it? She was going over in her mind over what she might have, that could fill those needs cheaply and for the most bang for her buck. "Robert, I will post this at the drop port and make a public announcement. I know that the two mercenary units will like access to the cannons, and I know a few other people who would not mind having more computing power at their fingertips. I think you will be able to do some business while you are here."

The three talked for another hour, covering a lot of different topics. She did go into detail about a strange Invader class jumpship, which kept making stops in the system with a Mammoth class dropship attached. After the first stop, it never had a full load of dropships, but it always had the one massive cargo ship. It never made land fall, and none of the other dropships it carried from time to time made land fall while the jumpship recharged its engine. It just would pop in and radio to someone on the planet in a very complex coding system. Sometimes they would not even contact Traffic Control to let them know they were in system. When they did? They did not use the same name or id number in the messages. They would stay seven to eight days at the jump point. It was just long enough to recharge their jump drive, and off they would go again. It was very strange. Before she left the White Rabbit. Terry made sure to let them know that she would send a car and escort to pick them up at dusk for dinner.

Duke Terry was only gone for a few hours. It was just long enough for Robert to complete and submit the proper paperwork to Traffic Control and the new position of Port Master. That was when the first messages came in, to double check on what the two dropships were selling. The dropship's crew were told that they were on all of the "news" services about what they both might be selling, and what they might be looking at buying. They just wanted to make sure of the facts.

The fourth message went straight into the Lisbon Maru's bridge. It was an invitation to display some of their items that were on the market in the nearby warehouse. It was scheduled to open at noon the next day. Robert sent word that they would show some samples. At the agreed-on location and time. The two ships were not quiet, as they waited for the little show and tell.

Off to one side of the Lisbon Maru. A massive crate was pulled off of the egg-shaped ship by four massive loader mechs. It was what was left of the Vulcan, which the Battlestar Pegasus had recovered so that the Cylons could not get their metal claws into it. The massive flatbed that had picked up the load, had an escort made up of the Saladin and Pegasus scout tank. The massive nose mounted class 20 autocannon looked very intimidating sticking out of the shipping crate on a hover skirt.

Just as the sun was setting. A hover car escorted by two 20ton Wasp class mechs approached the White Rabbit. They announced that they were the ride for Jess and Robert. They were in their nice dinner clothes and not ships suits for tonight's event. The ride to Duke Terry's place was not long and they were followed all the way there by the two bug mechs. While they were being escorted, Robert got a closer look at the two machines. He could not see any signs that they were FrankenMechs. They looked almost like factory fresh WSP-1A and a WSP-1L. The techs Terry had hired must have known their trades. Both machines had seemed to have no problem keeping up with the hover sedan moving at over 80 Kph. This was a good baseline to know what the insides of those machines must look like, and it matched the outside.

If the Duke's house had been back home? It would have been a huge palace. Compared to the average Duke level home in the rest of the Inner Sphere? It would have been call quaint or rustic, at best. The dinner was just the three of them. It was held in a small private dining room, and not the massive hall that was for showing off to the locals.

The evening was not eventful and so was the trip back to the dropships around midnight. Everything looked normal, and for the most part it was. That is, except for the 3-person scout team that had just settled in. They had started watching the two dropships from a well-hidden position. They had been part of the local security detachment for the ComStar Compound. They had moved into the pre-scouted location just after the local sun had gone down and it was truly dark.

They were "only" leg infantry, so they did not have the special skills or equipment that a ROM team would have as standard issue to do something like this. Their job was only to watch and report what was going on around the two newest arrivals to this planet. They were a completely passive team by accident, more than plan. This helped them stay alive and unnoticed, because they were not picked up on any of the two dropships systems.

The two other dropships were also keeping an eye on things, and two of Duke Terry's mechs were walking around the drop port at all times of the night. Rumors were rampant about what other Lostech items might be held by those two cargo dropships. They were the stuff of dreams, and life changing events. That is, if you could live to take them from the new arrivals.

The only thing that did happen, that was out of the ordinary. It was that the HPG was sending out wave after wave of messages to all points of space around this star system. It was acting like a super high-tech lighthouse, only it was announcing its place in a larger universe. Each message burst was picked up by the Tramp class jumpship sitting at the jump point. They still could not read them, but thanks to the massive computer power used back on New Circe. They had broken all of the codes that they knew of.

The lighter weight computers on the jumpship would take some time to run the counter code software. But in around 24 hours or a little more for some of those intercepted messages? They should be able to read them but making any sense out of some of them would take quite a bit longer. The local ComStar site was sending word to everyone they could. That the Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale Company were sighted again. After dropping off the face of the universe almost four months ago, trouble had returned out of the deep dark to bedevil ComStar's operations again.

When the sun came up over the drop port the next morning. The Cargo Masters on both ships started moving cargo out of the massive cargo bays and putting them outside on the fire baked ground. Soon four cases, which each held one ultra-class autocannon was on the ground. They were next to four desk top office computers, each in a space safe container. Along with four containers that held ten new built Blazer rifles in each container. Last to come out were ten aged looking wooden boxes that held the old Colonial supplied weapons. Robert had decided, after the dinner with the Duke to add these weapons to the display. It would give him an idea of the value of those weapons on the edge of human controlled space.

Soon a large flatbed truck showed up and the power loaders from the two dropships uploaded the truck. Those same loaders would walk beside the slow-moving truck. They followed it all the way to the Warehouse, before they could start the unloading. They were joined by a dozen people from the two dropships. It did not take them long to workout, that this was not just a normal warehouse. It was also a full-on showroom and military range. Already on display, in the warehouse, were the full range of ammunition, which was made on the planet.

The items from the Mule and Trojan were quickly set up, in an open area marked with the company's name in glow in the dark paint. It was not as nice as the permanent displays around them, but it would work for what was needed. Robert, Jess, and the two Cargo Masters were the last to arrive from the dropship at the "Warehouse". Robert was making his rounds talking to all of his crewmembers that had been assigned to this task. All were armed, today with weapons that were common around the Inner Sphere and some that were not. Robert was not going to take any chances, and they were not the only ones packing a pistol and the occasional odd rifle in the building.

Robert had only reviewed the document that had been sent the evening before about how things were supposed to work today. He had assumed that anyone who wanted to buy what he had to offer would just come up one at a time to his area. That was how they had done it in the past. That was not how the Duke ran things, in this building. It was noted that he could have up to a dozen armed escorts, to keep an eye on his samples. Later he would call that last change a push, when it came right down to it.

An odd bell sounded around the large warehouse, which brought the members sitting at the other displays to their feet. Robert more felt the door open than saw it, as he quickly turned almost 180 degrees from watching the locals standing on their feet. As he finished his turn. He saw Duke Terry leading a very odd mix of personnel into the main open area of the warehouse.

Four of the strangers following the Duke were wearing street clothes, very nice clothes, but still just street clothes. A group of about a dozen were wearing what looked to be modified military uniforms, in about four different core styles. What grabbed both Robert's and Jess's eyes were the four people at the back of the group. They were dressed in long, hot looking head to toe white robes with blue trim. The pair knew without a doubt, they were from ComStar.

The group led by Duke Terry stopped at the two nearest displays to the main door of the showroom. They had some kind of short and fat missiles that Robert thought might be SRM's of some kind. As he was watching them. He had to fight down a smile, because most of the group kept looking Robert's way and not at what Terry was showing them. They knew what they wanted to see, and it was not a local made short ranged Inferno jell filled missile.

When Duke Terry finally walked the group to Robert's first display, the group was all smiles. After all it was what everyone had come to see in the first place. Robert held out his hand toward the Duke. They might be friends, but she was in her public mode, and she would not show "friendship". That was not the way she conducted business, and Robert was smart enough to know this information without being told. "Duke, thank you for letting us display our few trinkets in your facility." He had his trading smile on, as they shook hands in public.

Duke Terry was smiling, but it was one of her political smiles, and not like one of the ones she had on last night. "No! Thank you, Captain Copeland, for coming by with so many hard to find items out this way."

She dropped his hand and did a half turn. She started pointing at the group following her. "I'm representing the Government of the planet. We also have another member of our government, which controls the budget for the militia. We have representatives from some of the visiting Mercenary units, and of course we have some representatives from our ComStar compound." She was pointing to different people as she was talking, so that Robert had an idea of who was who.

Robert nodded as she was talking, and when she was done. He was ready to go into full swing sales mode. "Nice to meet you all. As Duke Terry said, my name is Captain Copeland of Copeland Supply, Salvage and Resale." He did a little bow to the group.

He gave a salesmen's smile, as he came back up to eye level. "I had hoped to start at the other side and save these babies for last. Looks like we will start with my big guns instead. What you see before you are a Star League advanced autocannon in the Class 5 range. Some of them are KWI made and others are not, but all are of the same capabilities. Each one is used but it has been cleaned, and completely serviced. They will take about any type of standard ammunition of that type. So, if you have an Armstrong J11? The ammunition will fit them. It will just go through it twice as fast as your normal Class 5. It turns a Class five into a Class 10 cannon in damage, but at almost twice the range of the heavier cannon." Robert stopped talking and let the cannons speak for themselves.

The group took a few steps closer to the mass of metal, it was almost a surge but more controlled. One of the Mercenaries in uniform looked up at Robert and then back down at the weapons on display. After looking at two more of the weapons in the metal shipping containers. He had an odd look on his face.

"So, you only have four of these weapons for sale? I was told that you might have more." The sound was a little on the whiney side, and a little dejected sounding to Robert's ears.

Robert was betting that the whiner was from the smaller or more cash strapped mercenary outfit. "No, we have more. As you all know, we are at the edge of civilized space. We have a measure of trust with the local government, but it only goes so far. We have set out these four weapons, to show that we are not joking, and we are not willing to play games."

Robert looked around to the group of armed strangers. "The way I do business, is that we agree to a price. Then you inspect the product. You only take and pay for, what you agree are weapons that are up to your standards. The price per weapon is 400,000 C-bills. The number of weapons you buy is between you, me, and the local tax man." He turned and gave Duke Terry a sly smile. He knew she was going to be getting a cut for the introduction and the sales tax. Two paydays for not doing anything was nice, when you could get away with it.

The whiney voiced man was blinking wide eyed at Robert. Robert was betting that they all, but Terry, were thinking they were going to have to get into a bidding war for the few weapons on display. Robert was still in full powered sales mode. "Please see Jess." He pointed to her, and she held up her hand. "She will set up an appointment for you to view and inspect the weapons. She will also brief you on our rules when you come by to inspect our offering. You will also need to make sure, that a representative from the local tax collector is present. I will not pick up that bill. I have enough to deal with already, and I do not have time to deal with that headache."

Robert let them look at the mech scale weapons for a few more minutes, and when he felt the time was right. He moves ten feet away, to a different set of open top boxes. When he was centered on the four boxes, he pitched is voice to carry the distance. "Now down here? These are the new Blazer over and under laser rifles. They are new construction, and not rebuilt. If you would like to test them? You are welcome to use your own output testers. You never know, I might be full of something best used on a rice field." This last bit of levity got everything from a grin to a soft chuckle from the group in front of him. It was a very common sales trick to make people at ease around the salesmen that wanted to take as much of their money as he could.

Now that Robert had an idea that he was not wasting oxygen, he got into the salesmanship game. "We are set on 2,300 C-bills per unit."

The Blazer rifle was not light, but it was man portable. Soon hands reached into the box and the 7kg weapon were put to shoulders and the action was worked. The double-barreled weapons were passed around the group. Sharp eyed crewman knew where every one of the weapons were at all times, till it was place back into the shipping box. Robert was thinking that he should have asked for 3,000 a weapon, but that might have hurt sales with a 40 percent markup. Even at the lower price, the Colonials were going to make some money off of each one. They had a very low to almost no labor cost invested into each weapon.

The next boxes were filled with the Colonial weapons. "Now if you will look at these. You will not find these for sale on any world. Yes, I know that will make you worried about ammunition. Each weapon will be sold with a supply, so that you can copy them or order them from any local supplier you might have an arrangement with. I have no idea of when they were made, or by who. I just know that they work, and they have a pretty good kick when you pull the trigger. They have a punch, which you would not believe. My partners and I think they might have been made for ether security or a special ops team that has been lost in time after the fall of the Star League."

Duke Terry and another civilian were looking closely at the over and under Colonial made pistols. She looked up and made eye contact with Robert and straightened her back. "Captain Copeland, can we test fire these weapons? We have an indoor firing range." She was not just showing off for the crowd about her interest in the handheld weapon, but she wanted to show them all of the amenities her showroom offered.

Robert used his chin to point to one of the standing guards. He was rewarded with the almost two-meter-tall man reaching into two different boxes and pulling out a Colonial rifle and one of the over and under pistols. A second person opened a small plastic box and pulled out some ammunition, which the weapons could use. Having the rounds handy had been only because of a last-minute addition to the load. One of the group unloading had sent someone running back to the dropship for it, after seeing the small range inside the Warehouse.

Robert, the armed security guard, and the rest of Duke Terry's group walked to the other side of the warehouse. It was a very nice indoor range going all the way out to 300 meters. The thick-walled area was like a dark cave, until recessed lights came on showing the firing lanes. The correctly armed crewmen passed around hearing protection. Then he took aim at the target, which was a full-sized person cut out in thick steel. The metal silhouette was set at ten meters from the firing line. It was close enough to the firing line that the on lookers could see that the target had some dents from other shooters.

When the almost two-inch-thick low-grade steal was hit with the small caliber upper barrel of the pistol, it "only" blew two holes all the way through the metal. The larger under barrel, blew the metal cutout head clean off at the neckline. The automatic range system quickly brought the damaged steel target back to the firing line for display. The whole group was impressed by the damage. While they were looking at the damage. A second target was hooked into the tracking rig by members of the warehouse range staff.

A body armor set was put on a second target, and it was sent to the 100-meter zone. Roberts escort used the rifle and put three rounds into the dead center of the body armored covered metal target as fast as he could pull the trigger. When it was brought back to the shooting line? The crowd was shown the holes blown threw the top plate of the body armor, metal target, and the Ballistic fabric armored back. The fluff line holes were very noticeable by the entire group of on lookers.

Back on New Circe there had been much debate, about these Colonial made weapons in public and in private. Some had pushed, that if they were sold? That they are not sold with "normal" military grade rounds. A few ideas had been kicked around, that had been focused on the advanced propellant and the cutting-edge bullet shape and design. The metallurgy of the bullet, sucked, compared to what SliE could make for their weapons. After one of the debaters had asked what they were worried about. Some House unit getting shot or maybe it would be good against the Clan infantry, if they came back. That had ended any debate, and the weapons and ammunition were officially offered up as possible cargo to leave the planet without any complaint by the public.

The hand-held weapons were just as useless against Mech armor, as the KEW's the Vipers had carried when the two cultures had met some many years ago. That was why the ammunition being sold, was right out of the Colonial's Navy cache. The City State was not making any new Colonial standard weapons anymore. They were buying up as many laser rifles and pistols they could. They still were making new ammunition to replace combat and training usage and being set aside as a backup. It was generating enough income to make it worthwhile for them.

Robert was keeping the salesman smile on his face, but he could hear what was being said in low voices around him. He was thinking that he might need to put on the list, more ammunition and all of the Colonial surplus weapons they wanted to give up. The walk back, Robert stayed three steps in front of the core of the local group. It would give the buyers some private space to talk.

When he got back to his display area. He went to the computers next to the boxes holding the Colonial weapons. The military uniformed people were now at the back of the group of on lookers. It was only the suits and the robes looking at the boxes with the computers. Robert put out the price per office computer, and it did not even get a raised eyebrow from this group of onlookers.

Duke Terry was standing to one side and made a head motion for Robert to come over to her. Robert stepped away from the display and Jess took over the display. She had answered a few questions from the group already. Terry had a wry smile and pitched her voice low to be masked by the back-ground noise, as Robert approached. This was not her first rodeo.

"Robert you are full of surprises today. I think you are going to be soaking all the money out of this group. Next time, can you bring just a few less expensive toys?" She was grinning as she was talking to take the entire sting out of the words. She was just as happy to get the taxes and consulting fees. She also was betting that Robert knew that she was only joking.

Robert just gave her a sly smile, while he was watching Jess. He did not hear what Terry had said next, so he got and elbow in the ribs. He then turned to look at the system leader. "I said! That I better get these boys moving, before they drool all over your merchandise."

Robert had a real smile on his face. "I would not want that to happen! Drool is so hard to clean off the weapons. It rusts them up something awful. Will we be seeing you later?"

Terry had a little glint in her eyes. "Yes, Robert. I think you will. Unless something comes up, that I can't get out of." She did not need to say that it would have to be something damn big to make her change her plans.

He reached out and held her hand a little longer, then he should have. "I would like that. I will have cold drinks set out or something stronger, if you want."

Before she could say more, one of her female aids came up on them. She had to pass a reminder to Terry, that they were on a time schedule and that they needed to move on. When Terry started gathering her flock of shoppers. The aid turned back on Robert and she was not smiling at him, more the opposite. She asked that Robert and his people stay in the Warehouse/Display House for another two hours. A truck would be sent around, to help them transfer there displays back to their dropships. When Robert gave the hatchet face woman a head nod, she quickly turned on her heals and followed the Duke.

When the group left the warehouse. Jess was reviewing her noteputor with some intensity. She had a smile on her face, which would not help with sales, but it might get her a date. They spent the next two hours in the Showroom. Robert decided to check out the other displays, but he had two armed escorts as he walked around the open space. He was let down, that there were not that many things that he or his people might need on display in the warehouse. That might change in the near future, and he noted every item that was made on this planet.

When Robert made it back to his people, they were already loading the local truck for the short trip back to the two dropships. Robert was watching them work, when Jess slid over to his right side. "Sir! I don't think you want to put the stuff back in the cargo bays when we get back. I have people starting to come over in two and a half hours to do some shopping."

She passed over her thin computer, on the display was a list of times and names. "I broke it down by time, group, and possible interest. We have three groups coming before dark today, and another two groups coming over tomorrow. I put ComStar down for noon tomorrow. It was kind of mean. I know that's the hottest part of the day, and with those robes? They will be cooking in their own juices." The look on her face was anything but apologetic.

Robert went to the times listed, that she was talking about and he bites his lower lip. He did not want to deal with those people again, but he had to admit she had a point. He was still trying to fight back a laugh, as he was thinking about the ComStar personnel in their thick and ornate robes in the high heat of the day without much shade and spending money.

"You did very well, and I think that time is perfect for them. Too bad you could not have told them the second Tuesday of next week at noon."

Jess looked at Robert a little confused. "But sir? There are not two Tuesdays in a single week on this planet?"

Now Robert could not hold it back, and he laughed. "Yes, Jess you're right." When it made it into Jess's brain what he had meant. She joined him in a good laugh. When the truck was loaded? The rest of the group walked back to the nearby dropship. This was the first time that most of them noticed. That the two landing pads holding their way home, were on the closest marked landing pads to the warehouse.

Robert and the walking group were slower to make it to the dropship, and when Robert saw a loadermech take a box into the White Rabbit. He had to grab his little radio out of his back pocket. He advised, both Cargo Masters. That they needed to prep a dozen more boxes of the displayed items, but not to bring them out until directed.

Robert walked the rest of the way to the dropship Lisbon Maru, without saying a word to anyone after the radio message. The items were on display by the time they arrived, but even in the shade. It was hotter than in the Warehouse that they had just left. Robert had someone set up inflatable field chairs and some portable shade put up over the displays, guards, and techs. Most of the shoppers would just have to make do with the slowly moving shade of the dropship. What could not be seen from the outside? It was that there was a group of very large, armed, and armored infantry squads near the access hatch on the dropships ready to go.

A little over two hours later. A group of small cargo trucks and two sedans, with a pair of Goblin medium tanks as escort, made their way down the marked road toward the two dropships. The Goblin was a medium class tank at 45tons. It carried a good deal of armor along with a large laser and an infantry bay, which was a nasty surprise on a tank. If one did not know that they were there. They could add an unexpected attack avenue. Still the pair of tanks were not a match to the weapons turrets, on the Blockade Runner.

According to Jess. This visitor was from the tank and infantry Mercenary unit from on the other side of the port. They called the flame scarred Triumph home. To Robert surprise, they were checking out the computers first. They spent about ten or fifteen minutes checking them out, very closely. Next, they then went to the boxes that held the Blazer Rifles. That was when an older woman, who was maybe the head of the unit techs, checked out the offered weapons. She ran test after test, on the weapons.

From the double-barreled lasers. They went to the other Colonial weapons. Robert had directed his people to give the shoppers some space. He was closer, and he overheard one of them talking about the range test to a fellow shopper. They were thinking that if their primary plan did not work, whatever that was. Then they could put these strange weapons as bailout weapons for the tank crews. That was a good idea, and even the SLDF had thought about that use for the ex-Colonial made weapons. That was until they were tested against the current made cut down Mauser. The Colonial weapons had not done well against the lighter lasers.

From the Colonial weapons, they went to the big dogs. The massive mech scale autocannons. Now more techs had hands in the shipping boxes. It was an hour before it looked like they were ready, but before they could talk business. They had to wait for a local government representative to come out to the dropships. As it turned out. This was in the form of Duke Terry and a 10-passenger wheeled van fitted out as a mobile office.

Duke Terry and Robert had a pair of chairs set up in the shade while Jess, locals and mercenaries worked out what they wanted. At least this time, they did not have to haggle about prices on any of the products. Robert had put out the pricelist at the warehouse and Jess had a few extra copies. They could take it or leave it. Robert knew that he could get the listed prices on the other planets he planned on visiting.

Terry was watching the mercenaries closely as they moved around the heavy weapons. She used her chin to point two out from the group. "Robert, those two don't look very happy. What do you think happen?"

Robert made a face but noticed that Jess was walking their way, and she was smiling. "I don't know, but I bet my partner in crime does." They waited until she was almost in the shade of the awning, after spending some time with the pair Terry had pointed out. "So, Jess? What were those two up-set about?" He used his head to point to the pair in question.

Jess tilted her head and did a slight turn, to see who he was talking about. "Oh them? The one on the left, is with the armored unit. He wanted more of the ultras. The heavy set one on the right is part of their supply department, and he is mad that we would not come down on the listed price for the Ultras."

The supply department on New Circe had spent a lot of computer time and brain power working out when they were going to have to drop the asking price down to 200,000 C-Bills on the KWIs. The running best guess was that it would be not long after MMM started making their own weapons of that class. That should be in less than five years from the first mission. Robert had said that it would be a lot shorter timeline, than what the supply department thought.

Duke Terry looked at Robert and then at Jess, so she was looking at the other woman when she started talking. "So, how well did you do."

She saw the off worlders head go back and her back straighten. It looked like she was going to balk at releasing that information to someone who was not part of her crew or company. Terry launched a disarming attack first. "Now, now Jess. All I would have to do is go ask my tax collector for that information. You are just saving me the time and energy of walking out in the hot sun to find out that information."

Jess looked at Robert, who gave her a slight nod. Jess returned to make eye contact with the Duke. "They picked up two of the ultras, a dozen Blazers, a dozen projectile rifles, twenty pistols and one of the computers."

Robert was a little surprised by the mix of equipment the mercenary unit had picked up, and it showed on his face. "That is…..odd. I would have thought they would have focused on only one type of items that we are selling. I was betting on them wanting every Blazer that they could afford. Having this many for sale and all of them being new builds? That would have let them increase their heavy weapons or anti mech squads almost overnight. Or they would get more of the mech scale heavy weapons and make them into a towed system, if they could not put them in their tanks right away." The confusion was even coming threw in his voice.

Terry was having fun and wanted to get one more dig in. "Now, now Robert. You have never commanded a ground unit. Your ships all have built in computers. All to help you manage things or store data for some maybe future contracts. Ground units don't have access to that kind of support, that often. Also, a unit out this way. That has a million and a half c-bills in the bank? That is hard to find. If I was a betting woman? I would bet that they are going to "only" use one of those Star League cannons and sell or more likely trade, the other one sometime down the road. They had a lot to choose from. They had to take a little of each, so that the overall unit is improved. If they are doing something like that? It makes them look better, when they start looking for their next contract."

Robert, Jess, and Terry watched the unit load their new pieces of equipment onto their own cargo trucks. The sun was past noon and getting closer to midafternoon, when the next customer showed up almost an hour early. It was the other major mercenary unit currently on the planet. Robert would have bet, that they had seen the other unit getting ready to leave the area and had decided to come on over as soon as they had cleared the area. Robert pressed some flesh, but Jess was going to be working the sales today. The only distraction was when some of the Dropship's crews left the ship, to go to town. Robert could tell that these representatives where from the Battlemech unit without needing to be told. They seemed to be a little let down, when they noticed that there was only one of the high-speed firing cannons left on display.

Jess asked how many they were interested in. It took a few minutes of talking, but finally they said they had been hoping to see two more of the cannons. Jess radio to the cargo bay, and within ten minutes. A pair of power loaders were bringing out another set of 9ton boxes. Robert could see, from his seat that their eyes had grown into the size of saucers.

This new group did not stay as long as the first, and when this non-escorted convoy also left the area around the pair of dropships. They had taken three of the ultra-cannons. They had not accepted one of the cannons, and a third fresh one had been brought out of the dropship. They had also picked up a couple of Colonial rifles and ten of the twin barreled pistols.

Robert was watching the van/office and the people inside seemed very happy after the second unit had left with their acquisitions. This got Robert to thinking. "You said earlier. That you were getting a sales tax on this. What exactly are you charging, for a sales tax on them?"

Terry had been watching and drinking a cold, and lightly alcoholic drink. She had been enjoying the setting and had been caught flat footed by the question, but she recovered quickly. "We have different levels of sales tax. If they bought weapons or other stuff from my people? They are not charged a sales tax, at all. If they buy weapons from a visiting merchant? They are charged a 2 percent fee." She stopped talking and turned a little flush. "I told them that with some preferred suppliers. We only charge a one percent tax for those purchases. We told them, that you were one of those preferred suppliers."

Robert kept his face still; this was new information. "Thank you, Duke. That was very nice of you."

Terry waved her hand in the air. "It's not that big of a deal. This is your third stop at my planet. All within less than a half a decade. I can tell you that the numbers of other merchants that have done that, they are very small. Maybe that will change in the future. I sent a message to MMM the other day. Letting them know that we would like to work with them on some side projects, that might be good for both of us. Even if they just nibble on that, it will be a boost for my planet."

She gave a mild laugh that led to a sarcastic noise. "I don't know how many other little planets out here, have done something like that. But what is the worst they can do to us, say no? I was out just the cost of the HPG message. I have made longer odd bets that have paid out, in the end."

Robert did not have a comeback and he just let it set. The sun was now casting longer shadows and it was just starting to cool off. Robert had someone from the bridge call the catering truck, to come out and feed his dropship's crews. The food truck was on the way to the dropships, when the third group headed out towards the grounded dropships, and everyone went on edge.

Terry stood up and smiled. "I hope you don't mind. I told my people to come out at one time as soon as the last group had left. I hope Jess does not mind." Terry had a sly grin on her face. She knew that sometimes she played games a little too hard with some people.

72 hours later the two dropships were getting ready to lift off again. It would not be two dropships taking off, but three. After Robert had contacted the Hobgoblin, sitting high overhead. He had been given some bad news. It was that some of the Vulcan parts were too big to fit out the personnel airlock of the small craft. The Leopard class dropship did not normally have small boat bays to land craft larger than 100 tons. The plan was quickly changed so that the modified Leopard would land at the drop port escorted by the one 80ton fighter.

After the odd shaped carrier landed, taxied to the correct spot, and cooled down. A loadermech and three small cargo trucks took the spare parts from an open fighter launching bay. Instead of waiting, Robert send the trucks to the other side of the drop port to the largest "normal" landing field. A few hours later an aircraft tow truck came over and slowly pulled the massive fighter to its new home. The local crew seemed very happy to have a new addition to their defense force.

Robert was not going to waste the time, so he had all of his power loaders crewed and deployed outside of the dropship. They started to pull out shipping crates. No one watching would know what was being off loaded from the Blockade Runner and publicly moved to the more combat-oriented dropship. After one of the larger metal crates was loaded back into the carrier, and the launch bay closed. The loaders went back the way that they had come. The crates would return to the cargo dropship two shifts later, and then they had to put the now empty metal crates away. One of the metal crates had went from massing almost 70 tons to only massing five tons, when it was removed from the Leopard back to the cargo ship. It might have been better cargo management to just dump the empty metal box and let the locals recycle it. Unfortunately, that would let unwanted eyes know something about what had been transferred to the fighter carrier.

Before they lifted off, Robert was in the briefing room on the White Rabbit with Jess. They were going over the sales that they had done on this planet. It was a good time to make sure all of the books were balanced. It was also a good way for them to get into a pattern that was most effective to do the job. Robert was not exactly gloating about the stop over. But he was looking forward to bringing up how well it had gone, when he got back home to Commander Xi. That did not mean that he was gloating, he was just satisfied, like the cat who had just eaten the prize canary.

"So, Jess? I understand that Duke Terry split up her buys, into small bites. Did she say why?"

Jess had to look at her notes more closely, before she could answer. "Yes, sir. She wanted to keep items for personal use, non-military, and military use, all separate for bookkeeping reasons." Now that she remembered the issues and was working on their own books. She could appreciate the effort to keep things like that clearly separated.

Robert was looking at some information on his own noteputor. "So, what was the breakdown for her and the robed religious nuts?"

Jess was ready for this, now that she had her own "books" in front of her. "She bought two ultras and two of the computers. I think she is going to put one of the cannons on the Jagermech and then she is going to sell the other one. The local militia picked up one ultra, but they also picked up a dozen Blazer rifles and matching number of Colonial rifles and pistols. I was asked to sign a memo for record, in triplicate. That said we were okay for them to try to make their own ammunition for the old Colonial weapons. We sold four of the computers to the other suits. I don't know what they did for Duke Terry, but I would bet they are working for her in some way or the other." In the back of Jess's mind, she could see one of the suits hooking up one of the computers in a new or expanding autocannon ammunition manufactory.

Jess put her notes away. "The ComStar people were a little mad at us, again. They did buy our "last three" ultra-cannons. This confirms what Terry had said that the local Com Guards did not have as much late Star League grade weapons, as they wanted everyone to think that they do. What upset them, was that they wanted to buy all of the computers. I told him that all we had left, where the ten that were on display. I don't think they bought it, not that we care. I would suggest that we be more careful about being to open with the rest of them."

Robert was running the numbers. He was thinking that they might should have tried to sell more items here, but he had the feeling that the locals were running out of money. "We will just have to deal with them, like we did on the last trip. If we take them back home? That would not break Commander Xi's heart. Great job. At our next stop, we will have to move those funds to a real bank. Well what we don't use at Dunianshire."

Jess was not surprised by the name of the planet he dropped. "So, you're still planning on going there? Why not just start going straight to Canopus?" She was still in training, so she felt that it was okay to ask why he had decided to make this move. Besides the last time that they were in that system. They had wasted time, and fuel to just get a lot of stone walling.

Robert let out a little breath. "Yes, but that is the only place that has one of the Families. The only one that we know of in this area. She is also the one that had time to look for someone who had the money to pick up our other jumpship. Anything after that? That is just bacon on our eggs."

Jess nodded her head in agreement, and she did not say anything more. She also was not going to say anything about when a certain person, had stayed over in Robert's room overnight. He was a grown man and Terry was above the age of consent. He had not done anything that others had not done a time or two on the last supply run, and he had not broken any protocols.

The lift off and the burn to the nadir jump point was noneventful. Robert was quiet for the whole six-day trip to the jump point. He had sent private messages back planet side a few times. Jess as the head of the intelligence section, could and did read them without telling the convoy commander. Just as Robert knew she would. And he knew that she would only find approved types of communications in those messages. Then again, he was the master of slipping things in a message that had double meanings.

The three dropships docked with the larger Styx, and three hours later. They had left the system to arrive in a lifeless star. While they were traveling, the command group was briefed on what the HPG team had been able to pick up while in passive mode. The reason for the stop was for two reasons. One was to make it a little harder for them to be tracked by spotting reports that could have been sent out by "someone". The second reason. It was that it took some time to fully decode some of the copied HPG messages. They did give them some information that might be useful. They were three days into the recharging cycle when the HPG team dropped the bombshell on the command staff.

Jess was looking at Robert along with all of the other officers in the room. This was a full command meeting of the small fleet. After the briefer had sat back down. He just shrugged his shoulders, at least he had some time to process what had been found by the reclusive team. "Well we know that they were watching us, and they had done so on all the other missions. Now we know that they want to find our people. And now we know that they have not worked out that the other missions were also part of our people. The way that they were screaming at the top of their lungs. I think that they think. That we were going to burn down their compound, because they tried to follow us a few months ago. The question is, what do we do about it?"

The Captain of the White Rabbit shakes his head side to side. "We cannot go back home yet. Even if we did not have to pick up the other crews, at Canopus. We should drive on with collecting a full load of cargo, but we must stay on alert."

Robert nodded in agreement to what was said. "Now what do we do, to protect ourselves? I have to choose. Do I keep the Hobgoblin with the Styx, or do I keep it close to the cargo ships?" Robert stopped talking for a minute to let the others think for a while with the peace within their own skulls. After almost one full minute of silence. Robert felt that no one else had an idea of how to react to the information, which had just been dropped on them. He was the fleet commander, and it was his job to take any action. But sometimes you have to see what others were thinking, or you would not be a commander for very much longer.

"Okay! This is what we will do. On major worlds, like Dunianshire, that has a powerful defensive force at the jump points. We will launch all three dropships towards the planet. When we are on some of the more minor worlds? I will keep Hobgoblin close to the Styx, with the Lisbon Maru still attached to her sides. I will be on the White Rabbit on those runs. We will just have to take care of ourselves, if things go sideways. Those are my orders, and those are the ones that I will enter into the log under my name."

Jess looked at the other Captains. "In the reports we intercepted. It did not say anything, about organizing any attacks on us. They were only trying to find out where we were getting all of the powerful computers, and the Late Star League aged weapons from. There was only one reference to an attack. It is now that we know it was two different ROM teams, which tried something on the last run. One had tried a little breaking and entering on the last trip. Do we think they might try something more aggressive on this run?"

The Captain of the Lisbon Maru made a sour face. "They were talking about the break in, but I would not put it past them to be the ones who paid for that pirate Leo to attack us. Now that we sold the Vulcan, and don't get me wrong. It was a hunk of junk, and I am not talking about the hulk. It could take out a light fighter with a single hit, and it would even give a smaller dropship a bite big enough to make them think about it before it did something dumb."

The Captain of the Hobgoblin had a little sly smile. "If you don't mind, Commander Copeland. I will take this one." He turned now to face the Maru's captain. "Yes, we lost the pair of good hitters in the Vulcan and they were good hitters. If any of them had lived, you could have asked that crew of the pirate leopard how good they were. What we gained, is a second Ironsides. So, we lose the two midsized autocannons and gained twin PPC's with the same damage to target. As we sell the other fighters? We will pull out, up to three more Ironsides SD1s. The now matched pair of Ironsides will start patrolling in a few hours."

This was new information for most of the Captains, but it was not new for Robert and Jess. The news went over very well. Robert made a note to review one of the plans that the head tech over on the Hobgoblin had sent up his chain of command. He had a feeling that things might go sideways, quicker than the brain trust back on New Circe might have thought when they had left.

Robert was hiding a smile from the others. "Okay, so we have the concern about our fighter screen taken care of. I want both security squads ready. We will still have only one on duty at any time, but it will be backed up by ships crews. We did this on the last trip, and we will do it again."

Robert looked around the room, and then they went to the next topic. Robert ended the meeting an hour and a half later, when they started rehashing things for the third time. He knew that each of the officers would be looking back threw the HPG logs, to see what else might be hidden in those lines of code.

Five days after the meeting was over. They were showing up at the Zenith jump point of the system that held the planet Dunianshire. They were just about 20,000 miles from the massive space station standing guard at that lonely point in space. It did not take them long to be welcomed into the star system. The only problem had been when Robert told them that they would be taking three dropships, and not the normal two ships coming into land on the planet. That delayed them getting the clearance to launch from the Jumpship, but only for a few hours. Robert was thinking that most of that delay had been just sending a message to the planet to let them know about the change.

 **Notes:**

 **Sales tax on weapons**. One of the ways the Wolf's Dragoons made money was acting as middlemen on any weapons sale being done on Outreach.

 **Stripping mechs or tanks to get others back into working order**. This would be a skill that would have to developed and not just in this part of space.

 **Why do the local Com Guards need to buy SL tech weapons**? There is a limit to even what Tera could support. In the Module Tukayyid, on page 27. You had to roll an 8 to get more level two gear. I was thinking that if half to a third of the mechs and tanks in that battle were "3025"? Then some place out in this area, so far from Terra would also be that way.

 **Current Ltzehoe OB.** Jagermech, Enforcer, 2 Wasps. Saladin, Pegasus, 2 tracked APC's, 4 LRM, 4 SRM, 4 bulldogs and one INF BN. Backups and citizen soldiers are 4 LRM, 2 SRM, 4 bulldogs, Vedette, 2 INF BN. ComStar OB is still the same.

 **Captain to Commander.** Copeland was "frocked" to Commander and his XO was promoted to Captain. This cleans up the chain of command. Jess has position over rank compared to the other dropship's Captains. Her mission, after taking command would be to get the mission back to New Circe.


	28. Chapter 28 27 Nov 3047

**Chapter 28**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **27 Nov 3047 the second run**

 **Dunianshire System**

It took a few days to burn at 1g for the three dropships to go from the jump point to planetary orbit. Robert used that time to contact Lora, and a few others on the ship's mounted Radio. They also sent a list of items for sale and what they were looking to buy, to the right people. Unlike the last visit to this system. The messages were returned by both Lora and Mr. McDonogh very quickly. Mike McDonogh was the first to reply by about half an hour. He wanted to set up a time to have dinner at the place that Robert was known to use. The name was not mentioned but Robert knew exactly the place that was referenced.

The landing at the drop port went without a hitch for the two dropships. The Hobgoblin would remain in high orbit and stay within easy range of the drop port. It was also in range of a Union CV class dropship, and an Avenger class assault dropship that were also in orbit. Those 2 combat craft were not flying or advertising as being under the MC flag. Any Leopard class carrier would have been dead meat, to that amount of firepower. Robert and the other Captains did not have to request the information, to know that those ships belong to MMM or at least they belong to someone that owed them more than a few favors.

The two cargo carrying dropships landed a few hours after noon local, at the main drop port. By the time the ground was cool. Commander Copeland had a dozen requests to look at their goods, which his paperwork had said was for sale. They also had a growing list of sellers actively wanting some of Copeland's money. All of them thought that they might have items, which he was looking for and were not on any published list. The plan was to spend five full days here, with a possible extension to stay on the ground for a total of seven days. That was only if, things went well. From the flood of messages, they had already received. It seemed like this was going to be a very different stay, than on their last stop by this star.

The two dropships and crews were well remembered, and soon a taxi service was set up to service the two crews very close to the dropships. Robert and Jess had the first meeting, and it was not with Lora. She was coming over after the dinner with Mike had been concluded. She was tracking down a few recent rumors that could not wait.

When Robert and Jess showed up for dinner at the Café'? They were greeted with smiles and pats on the back when they checked in. They even were jumping a line of about fifteen people still waiting for a table. The pair were quickly taken to the second floor and a booth that was very familiar to them. Robert made an offhand comment to Jess, that he could get use to this kind of service. Robert and Jess were still on their first drink, when a familiar man in a very expensive looking suit was escorted to their booth by one of the restaurant's staff.

Mike McDonogh was still the head of all MMM assets in this whole star system. He was dressed like he was heading into a major board meeting, and his face was well known planet wide. He started talking as soon as his hand went out to shake Roberts. Robert noticed that Mike had just a little dirt under one of his fingernails, but that was the only blemish on the man. He had to fight to not jerk his head up when Mike started talking like a waterfall.

"I'm sorry about your last visit, Captain Copeland. The week before you jumped into our system. ComStar had sent some very high ranked people out, and they used some basic strong-arm tactics on "US". When that did not work to the level, that they thought it should? They even went all the way to blackmailing and bribery. They hit more than a few key members of my staff and a lot of the same at the main office on Canopus. It took some time to get everything worked out, but it was worked out in the end. I hope that we can work together again."

Mike had a thin-lipped look on his face. He was sticking to the cover story that the Head Offices' Legal department had drawn up. It was mostly true, but not all the way true, and he knew it. Everyone was hoping that Copeland did not have the resources in the local area to find out all of the truth. Mike thought that the head office was making the wrong call. He would stick with the plan, until he was sure that Copeland did not still hold a grudge.

Robert let go of the hand and pointed for the man to have a seat. "Sir, I understand. I won't say that we are happy, about how we were treated on our last visit. We definitely lost some money on that stop; with the overhead I have to deal with. But I understand why you needed to take that route. And we found out early enough about it, so we could cut our losses."

Robert wanted to at least put out his side of the story, to this major power player. From what Lora had told them, there were a huge number of rumors running around the system on what had happened. And not one of them was even close to being true. Lora thought that ROM might have been behind about half of the rumors. "ComStar was not willing to understand. That we are on a contract, and I do not break my word. I hope we can do business again, but how about some good food first?" Robert did want to do business with this man. But if he could not? He at least did not want him, or his company actively trying to block or blackball them.

The MMM man had a salesman's smile, but he quickly agreed to the offer of food. They spent the rest of the time working out some details while they were eating. Mike thought that he was doing good not to have been told thank you for the apology, and now please leave us alone. Also make sure the door does not hit you on the ass when you leave.

Robert made sure to let Mike know that they had noticed the change of attitude city wide while they were eating. One let down was that Robert told the head of MMM, that he was not looking for lasers in the 1ton class on this trip. In fact, he was told that they were not looking for what the average person would call the most normal weapons. Robert was not even interested at buying them, at the friends and family discount rate Mike had offered. It was to help make amends, for how Robert had been treated on his last stop on this planet. He was happy to find out, that Robert was looking to get a few more dropship's engines like he had picked up on his first run to this planet. Mike knew that he could sell a few and it still would not affect the output of his dropship yards. The added quick money on the other hand would be very useful. Mike had so many projects working at one time, that he had very little in the way of liquid capital right now.

Robert could tell that the other man had not enjoyed the news that Robert was not looking for another fifty or so medium lasers. He wanted a way to change the subject, and he remembered the Jumpship he had sold the man. He was betting that MMM had been keeping a few grosses of medium lasers in storage, just in case he came back.

"How is that Scout, we sold to you working out? You were talking about using it, to be a way to save you some money on shipping out your products to some of your noncapital world clients."

McDonogh almost choked on his drink at the sudden change of subject. After he cleaned off his chin, he looked right at Robert. "Well, it worked out in some ways better and worse, than I hoped that deal would turn out. For one thing. MMM does not own that vessel anymore. It would seem, that someone wanted that vessel very badly right after you left. They not only paid full price, but a little over retail list price for her. On top of that, we got some "favors". It was only later. That we found out that some of those "favors", were going to cost a lot more than some of my staff and legal department had first thought. I can tell you that it was a very unpleasant surprise unveiled to my staff and the Home Office." Mike was a very good actor, and his face did not move a millimeter that he did not want it to while he talked.

Both Jess and Robert were looking levelly at the other man. Robert was the first one of the pair to voice his thoughts, that had run through both of their minds at hearing this news. "Really? Who would do that?" Robert already had an idea of who might do something like that. He was just fishing for some kind of confirmation. You never know. A third party could have come out from the woodwork, like a certain clan combat unit in hiding.

McDonogh returned the look with his own matching one. He did not like it when people try to play the fool. This one time he decided not to hold it against the Captain. He had an idea of how much he had lost on the last run to this planet. It was not just measured in the Fee's that had been charged to his company.

"Captain Copeland! I think you know who would do something like that, and that have the resources to do it on short notice. I would not worry too much about who that ship now belongs to. I had some of my men at the jump point check out the craft. I will say that whatever you did to the NavCom, was perfect. Then putting new hard drives in the primary and back up data storage bays? There will be no way that anyone will be able to use that to back track your travels. My people went ahead and replaced the primary data storage, with one that was… less than functional." Mike had a devilish grin on his face.

Jess let out a soft giggle. She had a mental image of a ComStar team doing their prayers and then pulling the device they had been talking about. But it turns out to be basically only a hunk of useless ceramic. When eyes turned to her she gave a slight shoulder shrug and used the attention to her advantage.

"I bet they were not happy, when they found that out. What else did they want? If you don't mind me asking? And what were you able to get out of our robed friends?" Jess was leaning forward on the table, and she was grinning like a schoolgirl. The bad part? It was that she was not faking the grin. She was about to fall out of the booth laughing. It was like your high school or work rival finally getting what they deserve, and not in a good way for them.

McDonogh felt a true smile come to his face, as he understood the younger woman for the first time. This group really did not like ComStar. And they were happy, that maybe someone had been able to get some advantage over the communication and shadowy power player. He had been worried that these people were going to be upset with his company and him, for what he had to do. He decided to throw out the script that the head office's legal department had given him.

"We got double the "normal" price for one of those "real" KWI's you sold us. Besides all of the funds that they infused the company with the sale of the Scout and the recovered blackmail and bribery funds. They also helped MMM fix some long-term issues, which we had with our Vlar 300 and Core Tech 275 fusion engine production lines. They had already help get the Vlar line fixed on Canopus, to get our output back up to what our records say was close to what it was doing when the planet was hit the first time by the SLDF. They were still working on the facility here, that makes the Core Tech line of engines when you came back. They threatened to stop work and pull everyone off the job, if we had contact with you on the last run. That would have shut down the whole Shadow Hawk line for years, and we would have been reduced to only being able to make spare parts for that line of mechs. That was one of the "favors" that I think cost too much, but the Board of Directors overruled me. They had seen what the increase in output of the Vlar line could mean to the whole company. And they were thinking that they would get the same out of the Core Tech line."

He was not going to say that the head office might have been right about that call. He had seen what had happened when two dozen Shadow Hawks with the updated cannons had done for his bottom line. Mike stopped talking for a few seconds. The other favor had been helping with a very secretive project that MMM had been working on for almost 80 years. He gave a visible shoulder shrug and continued.

"The other favor that they had threatened to pull out of, was a long-term project that was very close to my mother's heart. We have been working on adding a Clint 3T line to this planet's production capability. The Capellan Confederation has the lion's share of what remains of that design. It is seen as a possible major export opportunity for MMM, even if we can only make some spare parts and not the whole machine. Currently no one is making even spare parts for that design in the whole Inner Sphere, after the destruction of the Bell facilities."

Robert had to hide a small smile. He saw an opening and he quickly decided that he would see how far this "New openness" would go. "Have those "Favors" started to pay off for you?" Robert was glad that he had ordered two bottles of nice wine for the table at the start of the meal. McDonogh was on his third glass of the stuff already. Robert did not think that the wine was the cause of the openness, but it sure as hell did not hurt.

Now the businessman had a huge smile on his face. "Our MAD-3R line should be up to twelve machines a year average at the end of this month. Even with that increase, we will be able to put half a dozen engines on the open market as replacement parts. Normally we could only put one or maybe two extra engines on the market a year, as well as a few other spare parts. There are high hopes that we will be able to get up to between 18 and 24 new Marauders coming off the line by the end of next year. I have put a third more Shadow Hawks on the market this year already. Not all of them were new builds, but we pulled in some of the hulks over from the trade in lot. Next Year? I am looking at making more Hawks than Locusts. I might even be able to make more Hawks, than the whole output of Bristol SalvageWorks!" Mike realized he had raised his voice just a little too loud and he shot a look around the room, but it seemed like no one had noticed his increase of speaking volume.

"The new Clint line has not had enough time to really settle out all of the production issues and minor bugs. With the help of ComStar to fix some issues, and to give us some of the right equipment. We should be able to make about a dozen mechs or so a year. I think we will be able to double that output in another year, if not more. We have already made two full up machines. We are using them for testing out some new ideas. Mainly they were made just to make sure that all of the parts would fit just right. We just finished a run of a half dozen gyros, and the Confederation already showed up with the money to take them all off of our hands. Our copy of the Sloan 22 lockover is basically still being handmade. My plan is that we will not be making anymore full on machines for at least the next 6 to 8 months. We are taking a page from the local hover car strippers. We can make more money off of the spare parts market, than we can by selling whole machines. At least for now. When that market is more balanced, we will put whole machines back on the open market."

He was not going to tell these people that his company held the core data to do this, because of the MC support to Stefan Amaris and building up of "The Secret Army" all of those centuries ago. That was something that he had only found out a decade ago, at his father's deathbed. Even after all of these years, that information could cause some significant public relations issues.

"We have had buyers coming from as far away as the FWL. All of them are sniffing around for a Hawk with one of your cannons fitted on them. You have been a major boon for my company, Commander Copeland. The doors those updated machines have opened just within the Magistracy is nothing short of amazing. We now have a fully funded R and D lab on this planet, that has over half of its annual budget coming from the Government." McDonogh looked around the room again, and then leaned a little closer to Robert. "That was just from the "favors and selling those Cannons. I'm working on both updating the Leopard building facility and building a larger one, like a Union sized repair hangar larger one. Did I also poison the well of the golden goose, which made all of this possible?" He was hoping that Robert had not blackballed him from any sales. Nothing had been said, but Mike wanted to ask as pointed of a question as he felt like he could.

Robert looked at Jess and then back to the other man. "No, you did not. In fact. One of the main reasons I wanted to have a meeting with you, on the last trip. It was, that I think I might have found something that might be interesting for you and your company. Tell me, have you heard of the Bivouac system?"

McDonogh rocked back in his seat. It was like he had just been hit in the face with a cream pie out of the blue. It was good news, to know that the only near-term source of royal grade weapons, was not holding a grudge against him or MMM. The shock was the name of the system that had just been dropped on him. He had read a report last week about that very system. "As a matter of fact, I have. I understand that they have been offering repair services for anyone with the money and the time, for them to do the work on their dropships or jumpships. My staff thinks they are going to burn threw whatever spare parts they have left, within the year. Why?"

Jess gave a sly smile, and Robert gave her a hand wave for her to finish the line he had just opened. "I would not bet; on that they will run out of parts anytime soon. Or in the long term, for that matter. We happen to know that they were able to reboot an old Star League small space factory. The system manager had some big plans. She shared some of them with us, after we helped with a little pirate problem that showed up." She was not going to say that the pirate had been there to attack her people. MMM could find out that information, if they wanted to. She had just wanted to let Mike know that they had a very good source for that information.

Robert nodded and then picked up the line of thinking, which Jess had flawlessly followed. "If you sent out a ship with some extra weapons out that way? You might be able to talk them into making a run of Endo Steel for you. What would a hundred tons of that stuff be worth to you?" Robert ended his statement with raised eyebrows.

McDonogh's jaw was swinging open in the wind. If he would have had this information a few months ago? What could he have done with it? He did not speak for a few seconds as his mind went down the path of possible lost opportunities. "That could be an interesting opportunity. What do you get out of it?"

Robert could not help but laugh out loud. "Nothing! I think they are some good people, who got screwed. If you do stop by? Please let them know. That we passed along the word that they had open repair bays on our other stops. Besides I was thinking about those field modifications on the Shadow Hawks, ever since I told you about the idea. Endo Steel on some of your machines would be an interesting addition to your product line. That would help with the price of my MMM stock. We have a few more cannons for sale, and we also have a very few surprises that you and your company might be interested in."

The part about the stock price and that he owned some had just jumped to Robert's forebrain. It was a good idea, and he knew what they were planning on selling to MMM and how that might affect the mech sales. That might be a way to get some more C-bills for one Robert Copeland. He would also have to pass that along to SLIC, but it was not likely that they would make him get rid of stock if it was setting in a bank account in the Inner Sphere.

Robert passed over a sheet of paper, which he had in his ship suit's pocket. McDonogh did not pick it up right away. With a few looks to each side of the table. Finally, he reached over and picked it up. This group had already given "surprises" that had gotten his company a few more surprises, that were not so nice or had some very large stingers attached. With a sigh he reached for the pages. As he read the few words, he had to fight to keep his face flat.

Robert smiled as he saw the other man's face change slightly. "I should warn you. You have to be careful, with those things. The heat output is 50 percent higher than the normal Hellstars you make for your MAD-3Rs. If you just replace one of the Hellstars with one of these on your Marauders? That would be a surprise for anyone. If you get some of those Freezers the FedCom is making? You might be able to mount a pair on each, and it would not roast the pilots when they fire both of them off. But you will have to put enough of those Freezers on the damn things. You also might be able to make an updated SHD-2K, that would out Kurita the Kuritas."

McDonogh now was sweating. They spent the next hour talking about things that ranged across a boat load of different topics. They also arranged for a VIP tour of the main manufacturing facility for Robert and his key staff. They did not close any deals at the table. They would wait until Lora could be there to help with any surprises, which were sure to show up.

After Robert and Jess left the Le Chiffre's. They went back to the dropships without making any side trips. Lora was due to meet up with them in less than an hour. When they got out of the taxi, a hover car was parked in what was called the shaded side of the White Rabbit. Robert was worried, because he could not recognize the craft. Other than it was an expensive looking transport, it was an enigma to him. Two of the massive infantry troopers, with sidearms and light body armor, were watching the car from the hatchway of the dropship. That was where Robert saw that Lora was chatting up a third grunt, not far away inside the cargo main hatch.

Lora saw the cute and tall trooper's face go blank and this back went ramrod straight. That was the only hint that she got, that said someone important was coming up behind her. The sound of the drop port had easily drowned out the approach of the taxi. Lora turned in time, to see Robert stepping threw the main cargo hatch. Lora did not have to put a smile on her face, it just was there. She was happy to see them, and not just the man that was leading the small group. She was happy to see more of her people again.

"Captain Copeland, so good to see you again! I hope we can do some more business together while you are on planet." She was staying in the story, just as she thought she should do in a situation like this. Besides she had her reasons.

Robert stopped walking and looked at the woman. He knew that something was wrong. It took him a minute for him to realize it was the tone of voice she had just used. They were friends and that was not a friendly tone, but it was a working tone that he had heard her use before. That was when he saw her tap the little noteputor she always had with her. He had remembered that she had said it was as expensive as it was helpful to her work. Robert's eyes gave her his best " _what the frak look_ " without saying a word.

"Yes, Miss Noone. We did very well together last time. I hope that we can have a repeat of that performance on this trip." Robert was tap dancing and trying to play along with whatever game Lora was playing.

Now Lora was rapidly tapping the thin device, but not touching it with her fingertip. Jess noticed it, and she felt her heart race a little faster. "Miss Noone, you know that we don't let personal electronic devices into any of our meetings. Why don't you leave it with the hatch guard? They will make sure that you retrieve it before you leave." Jess knew that this was not true, but she had also noticed that something was off with Lora tonight.

Lora let out a little bit of breath and nodded her head up and down. She still had a very fake smile on her face as she looked over to Jess. "Oh! That's right! I forgot about that. I will just put it back in my car, I'll be back in a few." She did a little hand wave and exited the dropship hatch heading to the hover car. More than two sets of eyes watched as she went down the cargo ramp and headed for her grounded hover car.

Robert and Jess were still waiting on the inside of the hatch, when Lora came back up the ramp. They went the rest of the way to the meeting room without saying too much to anyone along the way. When Robert took a seat in the briefing room, the Captain of the Blockade Runner was knocking on the hatch before his butt had put a dent into the leather pad of the comfortable chair. " _So much for letting me enjoy a little food coma_."

"Sir! We have picked up some new friends. It looks to be two groups, again. One group is in one of the warehouses not that far away, and the other one is in a type of hover enclosed cargo van. Both groups are using Star League scouting equipment, not unlike what we saw the last time. We think that we have one larger group, which has split up into two different locations. We also think they are talking to each other while they wait."

Lora was nodding her head up and down, but she still had the frown on her face that she had been sporting after dropping off her data pad. Her voice sounded a little tired when she spoke up. "I'm not surprised. I had some computer issues, and when I took it to a friend. She freaked out. Someone was bugging my little helper. About the only thing she could tell me, was that they "owned" it. I was just carrying it around with me because I did not know what else to do with the damn thing. I only didn't want whoever it was, knowing that I knew about the bug in the first place. Besides I spent too much money on it, to just put it in the recycle bin."

Robert had a poker face on. He looked from Lora back to the ship's Captain. "Okay, keep an eye on them and forward all information to the security squads. Tell them if something happens? I would like one of them alive and talking, but not at the risk of one of our people getting even a hangnail. They are to shoot first, shoot second, shoot third, and then ask questions if anyone is still breathing. Those are the orders of the day." The tone of his voice brought Lora's head up to make eye contact with the man. The tone was one she had heard a few times before, but not from this person. It was more than a little frightening.

Robert took the look and returned it levelly to the local member of the family. She did not ask any questions. He filled the empty air of the briefing room. "Okay, first things first. Lora, what have you got for us? Did you get our HPG message marked Red 6?"

Lora blinked twice and then she got her feet back under her. "Yes, I did. I had no idea that you were out by New Dawn, again?"

Jess smiled and winked one eye at the other woman. "We were not. We were just testing a new toy, and you were the first chance we had to test it. From your statement, I think that it worked as designed. We want certain groups to think, that we were anywhere but where we were, when we sent that missive to you."

Lora had no idea what Jess was talking about, and she doubted that she would ever know. In truth? She did not really want to know. If she did not know? Then she could not tell anyone or let it slip where someone else might hear it, as her bugged device had shown her. There were very few "safe" places for her to speak. She gave herself a mental shake and focused back to business that needed to be done.

"Well after the ComStar freaks, got me off the blackball list. I was able to gather about 40 tons of tools that match what you needed on the last list that you gave me. It comes up to just under two million, in cost. I also found a local buyer, for the Cheetah. She is offering 1.6, but only if it passes a third-party inspection. The price is about what a new one cost, so I think it's a good deal."

Lora was going off of her memory alone, over the last few months. She had been going back to some old school skills her mother had taught her, with only a little bit of very high-tech mixed in. "I know that I told you, that if you give me some time. I could move higher ticket items. The Cheetah sale was one that had come looking for me, after you left. She was pretty let down, when she found out that she had missed you. I checked with her again, when I got your message about you coming back this way. She about kissed me, when I said you were coming back, and that you might have the fighter for sale."

Lora took a sip of the water from a glass on the table. She was about to drop a bombshell on Robert and Jess, and she wanted to savor this moment. "I was able to contact another "Family member". It took some time, but I got a reply to my first attempt to contact some of them. They worked to line up a possible sale of the Merchant class ship, you warned me about. I sent a recheck message, that it was a go and an estimated timeline. It works out better for the sale that it went to Canopus. They will be on Canopus in 60 to 70 days. It would have taken longer for them to come all the way out here, but HPG's are alot faster."

Jess pulled out her thin computer and did some numbers. "Sir that would work. That is about four days after "they" get there. If they don't have any issues, along the way."

Robert nodded his head to what Lora and Jess had said. "Okay, that sounds good. I also need to let you know that we will be opening and leaving open bank accounts from now on with major amounts. High Command does not feel that sending a Mammoth or other larger dropship would be conducive to our people's needs."

Robert knew as soon as the words left his mouth, that he had not been able to bleach the contempt for that decision out of his voice. He was still a little bent out of shape about not getting the larger dropship for this mission. "So instead? We will be using the Mule and making more trips between this part of space and home. That means, that we will not be able to use all of the capital that selling the jumpship and dropship should raise all in one shot. With what we had left over from the last trip, and what we have raised so far on this trip. That means that we have over 50 million C-bills in cash or bank transfer notes of different kinds, to work with already. I want to put over half into the banking system, but I want to keep about 15m in cash like items in my ship's safes. We can use that between stops, that don't have access to an HPG in a timely manner. What do you think, Lora?" Robert and his small staff had learned a few things on the last run, but he wanted to know if a second set of eyes and brains might have a different idea.

Lora was thinking. She was not used to being asked a question like this, but she had been around this type of market for 2 generations. "If you keep a lot of cash on hand? It will get out, to maybe the wrong ears. That much money would draw a lot of attention, by some not so nice people. All who would like to take it off of your hands, and they might not be too worried about leaving a lot of blood on your decks to get at it. After all it's not like you have a battalion or more of armed troops to keep them away."

Robert took in the information, as was his job. "It they want to try something like that? They will not enjoy the experience. Have you been able to set up any other buys, yet?"

Lora knew how to handle this. "Yes, and they will start coming by around 0900. I have already talked to the dropship's Captains and Cargo Masters about it. I have also passed along a list of businesses, that have items you wanted on your updated list. You will have people heading to them tomorrow. MMM put the word out, that they would be actively looking to work with you. It was a few hours after I got your message about being headed this way after your last stop. I think they had a premade press release ready to be sent out, as soon as they got the word. That changed a lot of minds about working with you at the drop of the hat. I know it was support from MMM, that helped me find some of those items you were looking for."

Robert was now all smiles. "That is good work, Lora. You're earning your pay already. Go ahead and make arrangements to have the items you have already picked up shipped to us. I will make sure to let our contact over at MMM know, that we appreciate their help in getting all of us off the local blackball list." Lora already knew about the meeting with the President of the local office of MMM and Robert. Still it would not hurt to let the word float around that Captain Copeland and MMM had truly patched things up.

The meeting went on for some time, as the three worked out a few items. Lora left just as the second moon rose in the night skies, and the second set of crewmembers was heading out to shop in the big city and have some fun. Robert, Jess and escorts went out not long after Lora, spending time and money as they went to all of the local shops in the main shopping and tourist area of Londinium. Jess was asking a lot of questions about how and what to buy. When midnight sounded on the town's massive clock, all of the crews had returned to the grounded dropships.

While the crews of the dropships were settling in for their first night on a new planet, others were not settling in. The two ROM teams of ComStar personnel were keeping an eye on these strangers, very closely. They were collecting data, but bets were being made on when or if, they would be given the word to do something…more active against this group. Both teams had been briefed on the past actions teams' results, or more to the point. The lack of results, that were positive on those last two actions. Each of these two teams thought they would do better, and that somehow the other teams had somehow screwed up the operations. While the ComStar team watched the dropships, the dropship's crew were watching and listening to them.

When the sun came up over the drop port. It was a beehive of activity and the two newest dropships were just as active as everyone else. Outside of the two egg-shaped ships, loaders exited hatches loaded down with cargos of all kinds. Cannons, guns, and a few computers were off loaded and put on display. It would not take long for word to spread, and even people who did not have the money or need would hear about what was going on. They all would stop by to checkout, what everyone on the planet was talking about. On this planet, they did not charge any sales taxes or other fees on weapons made by third parties. In theory, anyone could have bought what was on display. In Theory, that is.

With a major manufacture of battlemechs and combat vehicles in the form of the Pike, Manticore, Po, APCs, and LRM and SRM carriers all on one planet. The total production was not that much compared to New Circe. But when you add that in with all of the skilled techs from around the system and on this planet. It became a major hub of trade, in this part of space. The Captains and the Cargo Masters would alternate closing deals around the two dropships. Soon they were getting to buy some things, to spend the money that was coming in by the bucket loads.

The first purchase was three trailer loads of Fuel Cell powered cars and light trucks. As they were inspected, they were loaded into shipping containers that Robert had used on the last trip. That is if they were not in them already. MMM picked up another three dozen Ultra cannons, and on the side over a dozen H-class Extended Ranged PPCs were stealthily packed away. A few different mercenary units were shopping, but they claimed that they could not afford the price being asked by Copeland's people. By now information about new Star League Tech weapons were in all of the news books, and word said that more and different types were coming out of the factories every month all over the Inner Sphere. The price was just too rich for the units out on the edge of space. That was looking to change soon, but not for right now. The market was still limited, if Robert did not want to blow his cover. He would have to keep the prices on the higher side, to just under insane levels. After all, some units had already been able to scrape the money together.

That afternoon Robert, Jess, and two escorts were given a VIP tour of the MMM Shadow Hawk plant. MMM was very proud of what they could do in that now fully repaired facility. At the edge of the Inner Sphere, it was an impressive site to be able to see in operation. But Robert and Jess had seen the top of the line Star League plants, that the Star League in Exile used and could even reprogram to make different types of war machines as their need or technology changed over the years.

In those types of facilities on New Circe. All you had to do was load those tons of different ores, some of what Robert's ships had brought back. They just needed to be loaded into one end of one of those beasts, in the right openings. Robots would automatically take what was needed to make whatever was planned or programed into the automated factory. And out of the other side would pop out a finished product. In less than a month all of the ores were used up, that Robert had brought back. All to make more new weapons to fight the Cylons.

Jess and Robert smiled and made the right noises, as they were shown around the ancient building. It was during one of the dogs and ponies shows about the base defense, that Jess asked if they were keeping an eye on things going on around the drop port. The briefer stopped her briefing midsentence and looked to one side of the room, at what Robert thought might have been the head of security. Robert knew that Jess had just asked something off of the cuff, but it seemed to have struck a nerve somewhere.

The board but tough looking woman let her eyes narrow as the question sunk in. She was only kind of used to being in this type of show, and she had not been fully paying attention to the proceedings after the first two hours. She knew that this group had been attacked, twice now. "Not normally. Why would you ask that?"

Robert looked at Jess, but it was a valid question and it did not break any of the protocols. He stepped in, to turn the focus to him. "We picked up two teams of people that looked like they were keeping a close eye on us. We had thought, that they might be your people. From your face's expression. I would say that they are not your people after all." Robert had not thought that they were MMM, but he said so to cover up the fact that his people thought that they might be related to ComStar.

The hard-looking woman looked at another suit. and then started to step away from the rest of the group. Just before she exited the room, she called out over her right shoulder. "I will have to send someone to check on that." She was gone out of sight a few seconds later. She was about to kick over some rocks, and she knew right were to start.

While the rest of the tour was wrapping up. The tour guide was let down, that these VIP's were not looking to buy any of the Mechs that she had been showing them for the last few hours. That just did not seem right to her world. She had been warned that these merchants were not the normal group, and they knew what they wanted. More importantly, they would pay for whatever they wanted the second they saw it. They also had things that very powerful people in MMM wanted from them, and they wanted to keep getting stuff from them. She had played nice and done her song and dance, just like she had been asked to do on short notice. Now she was sending them to "The Showroom", via an armored convoy of four cars. She would not think that much more about them by the time she had left for home.

When Jess and Robert showed up to the now familiar looking building. They were met by Dawn again, but this time she was in a lot more expensive dress suit. Instead of the "Normal" show, that she would do for any of her normal clients. She took them right to the items on their wish list or stuff that was close to it. This time she was ready for them, and she was going to make sure that she did not waste anyone's time.

In less than two hours after getting out of the hover convoy. The pair had bought another two-dozen industrial mechs from The Showroom. They ranged from construction, farming, lifting, and moving types of machines. It was not a record-breaking day. But it now made Dawn the number one and number two for the top sells in any given day, as measured over the last century. She was a very happy woman, when Robert and Jess had left the "Showroom". They were again, in the four armored cars supplied by MMM on a high-speed run to the drop port. They cleared the main gate, just as the sun was going down. It had been a very full day for the off-planet group.

It was a repeat of the last night, with small teams of crew going out shopping and doing what people do that have been kept to close together for too long. As the night before, by local midnight. All of the crews were back on the dropships and the ships where locked down for the night. Robert was not sleeping at that time, but he was sitting on the bridge of the White Rabbit. He was watching the two maybe ComStar groups, as they were watching his people. At around 2am things changed, radically. The two attack teams had been warned that they only had about 12 hours before security units from MMM would start looking for them.

With this warning in hand. The local ROM and Com Guard commanders had decided to launch a raid on the smaller of the two dropships, earlier than they had originally planned. That ship had been worked out as being the command ship, for this little group of troublemakers. The plan was to sneak into the blockade runner, kill the command staff, and make it look like a theft of computers and weapons. Then the team would return to the safe house, before they were to start the exfiltration process off of this planet.

The attack was going to go in, led by the sneak suited first group of six personnel. The heavy firepower was going to be provided by six P12 Tornado PA(L). The second team had been able to justify breaking out those very high-tech weapons, after the now two failed attempts of ROM teams. They were waiting for the final word to launch the attack, after the first warning that their cover had been blown. Amazingly they still were not using codes of any kind. Why should they? It was not like anyone had accessed to late Star League tech spying or counter spying equipment.

Robert was on the bridge of the White Rabbit. From the outside, it looked like the dropship's crew was asleep and in darkness. That was far from the truth. The bridges of both ships were fully manned. People were awake, armed and armored. Only the odd one or two of the security detachments were dozing, but even then. Their hands were near weapons. The Radio operator suddenly spins around in her chair, to face the command group.

"The attack word has been given to the two ComStar groups! They reported back that all six Tornados are fully operational, whatever that means. Looks like we might have visitors coming by to do a panty raid tonight."

Robert turned to the Captain of the dropship. "Please pass to the infantry squads on both ships. They are to go to full alert status and deploy to counter the avenues of assault. I want all secondary security personnel armed and armored, but they are to stay in standby locations with weapons locked and loaded. Everyone else is to keep their weapons on safe. This is for both ships, but let the Hobgoblin know that it looks like something is about to happen."

While the orders were given to the security commander on each ship. Robert was checking out the raw data coming into the command center. When the ship's Captain returned to his side, near the center of the command center. Robert was not that well versed in ground combat, but the dropship's Captain had spent a lot of time training with his new crew additions. "So, Captain. Do you think you will be able to track them this time?" Robert was not trying to pull at a scab, but he wanted to know what the other officer was thinking.

The Captain of the White Rabbit was sporting an evil smile, and he was almost dancing on his toes in excitement. "Yes Sir! Most of the time with radar, it is all about the power output. We have had our "Air traffic and Ground traffic" systems on since we landed. We have good data. They are low output devices, but in this case. It's not about the power going out of the dish. It's more about the returned energy, and how you process it. By now we have a very detailed radar map of the local area. As soon as they start moving. We will see them all the way in, as they disturb the existing radar map of the local area."

For the next twenty minutes. All they could do was sit and wait, as a set of 12 people came slowly towards them. Then a shout came from across the room. "Movement! We are picking up movement. Threat count is 6, 8, 12…still climbing. They are 100 feet and closing…slowly."

Robert was almost shocked silent, and then lightening quick. He reacted to the new information being shouted across the room. In a blink of an eye, he was moving and talking. "We did not pick them up sooner?! We did not pick up anything?''

The voice from the radar operator was frantic. He was almost to the point, that he was not getting across the information that he needed to for a few seconds. "Sir! It's not Group 1 or 2. This is a south side contact. The ComStar groups were on the north side of our hull!"

Now the whole bridge was in action, focusing on the new threat. Robert was looking at the updating data. "Contact the Maru. They are to keep an eye on Group 1 and 2. Designate this one Group 3. We are closer and will keep an eye on them."

Robert fully turned to the Rabbit's captain. "Captain, you look to be having some visitors. It's your ship." Robert took three steps to one side. Clearing the view of the main display, for the other man to act or more react to the changing situation. Robert was still close enough that he could keep an eye on the bigger picture. He was surprised how fast things could get out of hand. In space it was a lot harder for you to get a surprise that close to your hull.

The Captain nodded and stepped forward, to show the bridge who was in command now. "Okay, get the infantry squads moving. Looks like they are focusing on personnel access hatch 2B." He stopped talking and looked at the display. He did some math in his head. "Let them know, that it looks like four light infantry squads are on that side of the ship. They are to move their butts and shift that way. Activate the backup squad."

Jacob was moving slow and fast. He was running from cover to cover in a burst of speed no more than five seconds long. He was in first squad, which was also the lead squad for this mission. Bossman had said that the Blockade Runner was carrying a few tens of millions of C-bills, in cash. Their job was to take it tonight, and it didn't matter who got in the way. His crew was made up of 27 others. All of them were specialized in breaking and entering or otherwise stealing valuables from others. A dozen had been the largest crew that he had ever worked with, until tonight.

Jacob was great at breaking into circuits and getting around alarms, and locks. Most of the time. They did not need the full team, but this target was too big and hard for just one team to be positive they could handle the job. The ships were dark, and they should all be getting sleep in their bunks. Drop ports were safe and merchant ships always shutdown for the night, to cut down on operational cost or let their people out to have a little fun on the town. It should be pretty easy to take over this ship. A Mule only had a crew count of about twenty and this ship was a little smaller. That was eight less than this crew that was fully armed, trained, and people used to being able to get violent at the drop of a hat.

Jacob made the last rush, and BANG. He was against the side of the ship. He had his hacking deck out and plugged into and outlet in two eye blinks. The first port was dead, that was not a big surprise. Ships that were up to a few hundred years old, sometimes could not keep all of their systems working like they were new. This was a very good sign for Jacob. He quickly went to the secondary port, in less than two seconds. By that time, a second person had joined him against the metal side of the dropship. He could careless, as he was working on popping the hatch.

Jacob's deck was not as high tech as the one used by ComStar. He would not have known this, at all. He had always assumed, that his device was the best there was in known space. He spent a lot of time and money, to make sure it was the best. Now he was working the device and he did not notice the rest of the world turning around him.

As the time went along. More of the B and E crew made their way to Jacob's location at the side of the spacecraft. Now, what Jacob's device made up for in not being better than the ComStar supplied hardware? It was that his was better in the software that he used to do this kind of job. He used his system often and he had to modify it all the time. Getting this hatch open? He already knew that it was taking a lot longer, than it should have after finding that first dead port.

A very large man slammed into the metal sided ship, but he did not make a sound with the impact. He looked down at the smaller hacker. "Come on little one! Get this egg open." This was said in a harsh whisper, which carried to a dozen different ears.

Jacob did not move his eyes from his device, and his hands were still moving over the keypad. "Don't mess with me when I'm working, or I will tell the Bossman."

He stopped talking, and he bites is lower lip. "This is some crazy stuff. I have never seen or heard of some of these code commands, before. It should not be this hard. Ahh! Here you go." Jacob did an exaggerated hand movement on the keypad, and with the last stroke making an audible click. The sound of the click on the hacking deck was overwritten by a louder click coming from the nearby metal hatch. He had no way to know that it had taken him 40 seconds longer to pop the hatch than the ROM team had needed.

James Olson was a massive man. That was thanks to the genetic engineering done on him and his ancestors by his clan over the generations. He was listed at six foot ten inches tall on his id card. He had only been of average high, in his class at infantry school. He had graduated as the very top person in his class, and he had been put on the list for possible assignment to the Nighthawk unit. This also was a very plum assignment, and he would not be picked for it after all. The change had been after he had been able to pass the test about keeping to a given story, even after a dozen strong drinks. That had moved him into another plum assignment, that was a close rival to the Nighthawk unit.

Now he was on a resupply mission to the Inner Sphere. He had been waiting near the main cargo bay door. He had also been the nearest security person that could shift to the new threat, that had surprised the command deck. He had just set up near a corner with a good view and cover of the access way, which the bridge had said was now at threat. He was wearing heavy body armor that was equal or maybe in some ways a little better. Then what the old SLDF would have used on their average ground infantry unit. It was not "Clan" standard, but it was very good. Everything on his uniform had been based from items of that long-ago era, but two of the weapons he was carrying tonight.

The weapons he was packing were of a Colonial designed and made, high powered counter Cylon rifle. He would have preferred, to have one of the Mausers that a "normal" Wolverine trooper would have been packing. But firing something like that inside a ship? That might have broken something important and killed the whole crew, including one James Olson. The Colonial rifles were firing the more powerful Cylon killing ammunition, and not the counter pirate rounds most of the Rag Tag fleet had access to. He did have to magazines of those hollow point rounds on his gear, just in case. He was expecting that his prey was going to be packing a hard shell, that the Colonial rounds were just made for breaking. At least that was what the math said.

The ammunition had a very high energy burn. That gave the bullet end, an extremely high velocity when it left the muzzle. It was almost double what anything made by the Star League was known to have done. The bullet was also completely different, than anything seen before by most of the rest of the Inner Sphere's militaries. The metal was a little softer, than a modern one made by the "Great Houses" much less what the SLDF could make. That was not the only difference between this, and the other human made weapons.

The bullet, after leaving the barrel would "drop" a bit of itself to lower its mass in flight. The lower mass still had all of the energy of a larger burn provided by the exotic propellant, but now it was lighter and a lot more aerodynamic. It hit its target a lot harder, and then a second charge would activate. The second charge was something that no one in the old Star League had thought to add to each round, that was fired from a rifle.

Each round had a little bit of explosive not far behind the very aerodynamic tips. The idea was that the sharp and fast-moving bullet would punch threw the outer layer of the Centurion type Cylon. Then a microsecond after it had made it through the hard-outer layer? The small explosive charge would detonate inside the machine's hull. It was found that when this type of ammunition was used against "normal" body armor. It would punch threw the heaviest "normal" body armor front plate, and the explosive would go off inside the human body behind those protective plates. It would also push the now tumbling bullet out the back of the body armor at a steep angle.

James Olson was also packing the over and under Colonial pistol on his hip. It was loaded with "normal" Colonial anti pirate rounds in the magazine, but the under barrel was loaded with what was almost a mini grenade to let a downed pilot take out a Cylon. The last weapon was strapped to his back and it was also made by Colonial hands. It was a Blazer rifle, that had been in a shipping crate only a day before. You never know, when you might need some extra firepower. All of those weapons would have overloaded a normal person, but James was not normal. He could not carry this amount of weight forever. He could do it for a few days, if he needed to. And he had done something like that during his primary training, but not forever.

When the hatch James was covering opened into the ship. He planned on giving the person coming in three choices. They could go left, right or straight, after entering the grounded dropship. James found a good spot to cover the straight access way from the hatch. He was the first one of the other crewmembers to make it to this threatened location. He pushes his personnel locator, and then took a standing firing position behind partial cover provided by a ship's bulkhead. He did not have to wait long, maybe one minute and the chain of events gained speed.

In a flash. The hatched popped in and up into its overhead recess. As soon as the hatch was opened. People packing weapons and in black body armor started flooding into the ship. James was watching, and he was impressed at the speed and skill of the attackers. In what seemed like the space of a few heartbeats, a dozen attackers were threw the one hatch. The number was growing almost between eyeblinks. They started flowing down all three access ways as the numbers of intruders kept growing. James sited down the weapon and slowly took the slack out of the trigger of his Colonial made rifle.

Jacob was still connected to the ship's computer, and he was trying to do a little data mining while the rest of the team entered the ship. He about dropped his hacking deck, when shots started to echo out of the metal walled ship. The rush into the dropship had gone down, just like it always had. That is right up until, that odd sounding weapons started up in a thunder blast of sound. Jacob knowingly risks his life, when he leaned over and try to see how things were going inside of the targeted ship. He only saw bodies blown apart for a second or two, before a Colonial made bullet entered his ballistic helmet and popped his head like a dropped water balloon.

This was the first battle that James had been in with him firing Colonial made weapons. It however was not his first battle. He had been trained and used laser-based weapons for over a dozen years. He knew that they only fired once per trigger pull, like how he had this weapon set up. He was firing one round with each pull of the trigger. One part of his brain noted that he was only needing one or maybe two shots, to put down each of the attackers. He was so focused on the fight going on at the end of his muzzle. That he did not notice that fire was coming down the other access ways, or that someone was on the deck by his feet adding their firepower to blunt the attack. He saw a head pop out at the edge of the hatch.

James put a single round into the small exposed target that was standing on the outside of "his" dropship. His weapon made an odd click when he pulled the trigger a second time. That was the only sound to let him know that his weapon's magazine was empty of rounds. He could have reloaded very quickly from one of his ammo pouches, but he chose a different path. He released the weapon and it retracted on its friction straps. He did a motion with his hip and the Blazer rifle shifted from his back into his large hands. He quickly had the heavy weapon up to his shoulder, and it was now in a good firing position.

James pulled the trigger and the twin energy blast went down the access way. In a flash of reaction to the focused light waves, it was turning whatever it touched into hot, expanding gasses. A Blazer rifle was designed to damage mechs, tanks or heavy IFV's. The human body, even one covered in body armor had a different effect. It did not stop a blast. It did take some of the energy, but only enough to clear the path for the rest of the shot.

It was only a bit of harmless light, that made it out the still open hatch way into the dark night of the drop port. The six bodies between James and the hatch way had a nice double fist sized hole punched threw them all. One part of James noticed that most of them were only covered in heavy leather clothes for protection. Only the first few had "real" body armor of any value.

While the bodies were still falling to the dropships deck plates, outside of the ship. The man called Bossman noticed the flash of lights from his vantage point, coming out of the personnel hatch. He was about 100 feet away from the dropship hatch. Bossman knew that something was wrong, he could feel it. He reached with one hand and pushed a button on his helmet near his ear. "This is Bossman! Pull back! Everyone Pull Back! This is blown! Pull back now!"

Bossman started putting his own orders, into action. He started to put some distance between him and his would-be payday. He made it to the half-hidden 8x8 van, which was the escape plan if things went wrong. Bossman took a second to look over his shoulder, before he opened the long sliding door on one side of the large cargo van. He could count six of his people that had exited the dropship, which had to have been a trap. He made a mental pledge that he would find out who had set him up. He already had a short list of people who could have pulled off an ambush like this on his people. He would be going down that list as methodically as he could, later. Now all he had to do was get all of the way out of the ambush.

By the time that he had gotten the large wheeled van started, the rest of his team made it to the van. One look out of the back window, showed him that there were only bodies on the ground after the sixth person had hopped into the box shaped 8x8 van. He had started this job with 28 people, now it looked like he had seven left. He was not going to stick around, and he started moving his van. If anyone else made it out of the trap? They would meetup at the safe house, later. When the van started to slide around the building corner, he looked into the main cabin. The wounds on three of the survivors were looking like they might not live out the next few hours. That was both good and bad news, in Bossman's mind. Fewer survivors meant fewer people to challenge his side of the story, and fewer people to pay.

As the lightly armored van started to move to clear the warehouse. It was blown apart, as it came into view of the taller dropships. A pair of large lasers and fifteen rockets from a twenty pack LRM fired from the Trojan class ship went into the van. They struck the still slowly moving and solid walled van, almost at the same time. It just came apart under the hammer blows that would have staggered a battlemech. Parts of van and bio matter were still landing, when the local law enforcement showed up to the site of all the action. It did not take them long, to trace where the attacker had gone wrong. They followed the evidence all the way back to their staging area of the would-be robbers. It was filled with items that had been left behind, like food wrappers and human waste.

The woman in charge of the ComStar groups was only about two minutes away, from radioing back to her boss that they were about to launch the attack onto the dropships. She had stopped dead in her tracks. It had been when her point ground team stopped, after they also had picked up movement at the base of their target. At first, she was mad that someone was poaching her target. Then the gunfire started, and she was not that upset about the poaching.

Both ComStar teams recorded what they could. The only real facts that they had. It was that a light infantry unit had attacked the dropship, and they had not come out the better for it. When the heavy weapons had fired into a moving Van? She had decided it was time to move out, but back towards their base in the ComStar compound.

Her line of thinking was that it would not take long, for the MMM security people to find out about their planned attack. Then it would be only a matter of minutes, before they passed along that information about them to the local law enforcement types. They were on the road after they had finished "cleaning" their hiding areas. When inspectors came to these areas looking for clues? They found none, but a few scuff marks. That had only led to more questions, and kept people looking to find out what really had been going on that night.

This attack? It was the first known "major" attack or attempted theft, in almost a decade. It made the news both in the attack and the number of bodies that would have to be put in the ground by the local law enforcement agencies. With it being a crime scene, and not an "attack" by some hostile forces. The bodies had to be moved to the police-and custom's-controlled area of the spaceport. It was a little over filled, by the twenty mostly complete bodies, which they were trying to identify. Robert was not even asked to stick around for any questions. It was very obvious that he and his people where the would-be victims tonight. When it was time for the landing and sale of the 25ton F-10 Cheetah? They were still putting bodies in body bags around the dropship. It would seem that the local law enforcement was not ready for a mass casualty event.

Robert was outside when the first deliveries started to show up to the cargo ships. Robert had no problem telling people what had happened, during the early hours of the morning. He was using it as a warning, and he wanted to get the word out to the rest of the planet. That if you mess with his people? You had better bring your lunch and a whole lot of help. At 0900. The skies over the drop port were cut with a sonic boom. It was the Cheetah coming in for a landing. It would be parked nearby in the shadow of the Lisbon Maru, for now.

The new would be owner and a set of four techs showed up around a half hour later. Robert had wanted to be there, but he had to deal with a supplier. One that had decided she wanted to play games with them, even after all of the warnings. Jess was taking the lead with Lora as back up on the sale of the light fighter. The inspection should have only taken a few hours, but Robert had his people open parts of the fighter craft to help to speed the inspection along before the group of techs had shown up.

Rebeca was talking with the group of techs that she had hired to check out the light class fighter. The oldest tech was using a lot of hand motions to "talk" to the rest of his team, but Rebeca could not hear most of what was being said at this distance. She knew, what most of those hand motions meant. She turned and walked back to Jess and Lora, and her head was shaking as she walked. But she had a smile plastered on her face.

Jess took a half step forward and to one side to be closer to the other woman. "So? I take it that the fighter is as described?"

Rebeca let the smile get bigger on her narrow face. "I'm just glad, that I locked in the price before you came back. The tech I hired. He wants to buy it instead of letting me have it. They said that it's the best maintained Cheetah that they have ever seen. I'm ready to transfer the funds, whenever you're ready. I am just glad, that you did not want to delay the inspection after what happened last night." Rebeca had seen the morning news with her morning coffee, and she was hoping to see if she could pick up any good rumors.

Jess was wondering about something herself. Something was off, but she could not put her finger on it. After what happened last night? She felt it was okay to be a little rude, to the person that was about to hand over a million and a half C-bills.

"I'm glad you like the fighter, and making money is kind of in our business model. I was also wondering about something. Why would you be actively seeking out a predominately FWL light fighter to buy?"

Rebeca was a little taken aback by the question. It was rather personal, but then again. It was odd, even out here on the edge of mapped space. She relented, after all she had just asked a shady question herself. Maybe they were a little on edge, and after all. She would have been a little on edge. If a special forces platoon had just tried to take my ride home. That was how she was reading between the lines of all of the reports, that she had read and seen before coming over.

"I had mine blown out from under me, almost three years ago. Now the why? My sister and I are originally from the FWL. She is still working on planet. But in order to get a decent job? You need to be a lance. You can mix and match aero fighters, but it's not a good idea for the long term. Now, all I have to do is keep Kim from wanting to trade fighters on me." She was already picturing what the new paint job was going to look like on her new ride, and it looked awesome in her mind.

Jess, who had three older siblings, and very much understood the last part. "Good luck with that. Here is our account number."

Jess passed over a number, and the mid-twenties maybe pilot took the slip of paper with very steady hands. In less than a minute. It was all done, and half an hour after that. An aircraft tug was moving the light class fighter to its new home some dozen miles away. The sale and the movement of the fighter was picked up by a few of the news crews, which had been drawn to the alert on the law enforcement network.

The crews of the Styx, and Hobgoblin, would soon be very happy at the sale of the craft. They were losing a 25ton third line, at best light fighter, for a rebuilt 65ton SLDF fighter. It was a marked increase in armor and firepower for fleet defense, even if it was a lot slower than the light fighter had been. The SLDF in Exile would also be very happy not to have to worry about supplying the one-off fighter with parts and pilot training, when they got back home again. That alone would have value to the SLDF Navy, besides the sale price

The rest of the stay on planet was not eventful. About the only thing that could be seen as having changed over the last day. It was that now MMM or a Mercenary unit was always actively patrolling around the drop port in lance strength or larger. What was not seen, by most people, were the dozens of new observation points armed and always manned. It was just another day at a drop port, and it was business as usual on the outside.

The last things to be loaded onto the pair of dropships, were the fresh food and the four dropship engines that had been purchased from MMM. They would need the supplies for the next leg of this run. Those two types of supplies were joined with over 2,000 tons of items that were needed back home, that were picked up by the various buyers. Robert's crew had done very well for themselves.

Robert had a private meeting with Lora. He outlined the orders he had been given about finding out information on someone. It had taken her a day to work out what to do. As it turned out there were groups of mercenaries that could do this type of work. She would contact a cutout, and within two to three weeks. That recruiter would hire a unit to start watching a certain Ngo connected to Kowloon. It was not going to be cheap, and the contract was going to need to be renewed every year. But Robert and SLIC had expected this, and at least one of them had planned accordingly.

When the two dropships lifted off, again. It was a well watched event, if not a newsworthy event. This time Robert had put out, to anyone that asked. That they were going to Canopus as their next major stop. He also told anyone who asked, that they were not taking any hitchhikers. And they were not posting their detailed flight plans between systems that would end at the MC capital. Where they were going to be stopping next? That was not of any importance to the people in this system. That was how Robert addressed the questions, when asked time after time.

When word made it back to the planet's main MMM headquarters, where the next major stop was going to be for a certain jumpship. Quickly it was decided that some messages should be passed along, to warn their partners on the capital planet of the Magistracy of Canopus. Detailed reports would be written up with a new set of double coded keys, before they were sent out on the HPG network. Those messages would be sent out not long after the two cargo ships had left the atmosphere of the planet.

MMM was not the only group watching the two dropships launching today. The entire leadership of the local ComStar compound, was now interested in this group. With the number of Star League tech weapons, the used weapons, were not of that much importance. This bit of information had now been confirmed by their spies working within the local MMM facility. They had thrown out one of the ROM assets, to find out where they were getting what they were selling. It had been feared that somehow, Copeland had found an operational factory for the making of new ultra-cannons. Now that was not an issue. If they were selling used weapons? Then they would run out of those weapons sooner or later. ComStar like to train their people in thinking long term.

The new rifles and pistols were strange, but of limited use in the bigger picture of the rest of the Inner Sphere. They were even at a lower tech level than could be made out here, at the edge of the Inner Sphere. That was making this brain trust still think, that this company had just found a lost colony that wanted to be left alone. This world might be what had remained of a hidden Rim World. It would be filled with refugees that did not want to be found, because of the history it might have. This was something that ComStar had found before, and most of the puzzle pieces fit that data model. They knew how to handle that data model.

What was causing the issues? It was that they had stood up to the great ComStar and the word of Blake, and those computers they kept showing up with. On that first trip? They had counted them selling over 75 of those powerful but small machines, to any barbarians that had a few coins to rub together. Now they had more, and it looked like it might be as many as a few hundred of those powerful computers coming onto the market.

In the bigger picture? A few hundred new computers were not a showstopper, when it was spread out over the thousands of inhabited planets around the Inner Sphere. It was just a tiny drop in the bucket. They might last twenty to thirty years, before they would be just more junk sitting in a garbage pit somewhere. ComStar was looking long term, to very long term as a rule. They just needed to make sure, that those new systems did not somehow kick off any new innovations or add to the rate that the Helm's core had already started. They needed to know more information, and they needed it badly. They also needed to make sure that no one found out about how this spec of paint had stood up to them.

It was the main working idea that was causing some sleepless nights, for some high ranked members of that organization. That they might have more of those computers, lots more and maybe ones that were more powerful than what had hit the market already. Some that might be so powerful? That ComStar could not compete against them on the open, or on the dark market of passing favors and the odd few trinkets.

That idea was terrifying to higher leadership, as the news went higher up the food chain of ROM and getting closer to Terra with each passing of an updated report. Word had been sent to ROM's main office for the whole area, when Copeland and his people had entered this system. Now they were sending a message that he was heading their way, via a route that was not published to even to Dunianshire's traffic control. It was now their responsibility, to handle this little group of troublemakers after they had left this star system.

Wolfnet was interested also in Copeland and his traveling company, by the time that Robert had reach the jump point. Mainly it was because Rom of ComStar seemed to have it in for them. Anyone that ComStar might have a mad on about, was someone that the Wolf's Dragoons might want to watch a little closer. It was a very low priority report, which would not be seen on Outreach for months after this one domino had fallen.

Even then? The Dragoons were too busy rebuilding and updating their war-machines with the limited amounts of clan tech they had in storage, or that they could make more or less by hand. They knew the Clans were returning, soon. About the only note of interest, that made it to any high level of leadership? It was that Copeland and company might be useful as a source of additional supply of Star League weapons. Weapons that could be sent to some other units around the Sphere. Ones that were friendly with them, but ones that they did not trust to work directly with the Wolf's Dragoons people in shoulder to shoulder combat.

They had their own factories making new items as fast as they could, for their own use in the coming war. Maybe if Wolfnet had been a little less overworked for the last few years. Those reports might have been looked at a little closer, but Wolfnet generated tens of thousands of reports every day. The term is information overload, and it had been a problem for Intelligence people for centuries. Sometimes you just missed the golden nugget, no matter how hard you were looking for it. Then your boss would point it out to you, thanks to 20/20 hindsight.

 **Notes:**

 **Wolf's Dragoons and weapons**. They were building as much clan tech as they could, and they still did not field enough for everyone. They still had to make late Level 2 tech for their own mechs, fighters, and dropships. Look at the light fusion engine (LFE). They had to spend resources to develop the things, because they could not make enough Clan tech XLs.

 **ComStar and Criminals.** Not only ComStar was looking to have a payday. I think some might have forgotten about the first masterminds to do some B and E, but Copeland had left before they could make a plan much less execute one. Yes, ComStar miss counted the number of Computers and other things that had been sold. The B and E team overestimated the amount of cash on the dropships. There is no such thing as perfect intelligence, unless you have a working crystal ball.

 **There are many types of Mercenaries.** We know they have mercenary units that specialize in many different types of work. Why not data miners and Intel people? How to hire one? The same way some small power hires a mech company to help rebel against an overlord or to set up a garrison contract, a third party. And yes, there are risks doing something like that.


	29. Chapter 29 29 Feb 3048

**Chapter 29**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **29 Feb 3048 the second run**

 **Canopus System**

Seven jumps, and 64 days later. The Tramp class jumpship showed up at the Canopus system's nadir jump point. The Canopus system was the capital solar system for the entire MC. It had a lot of traffic, for this part of space. It also had one other item that helped a lot with the high level of trade coming into this system. That was that it was also within only one full jump of the Free World's League's boarder. This had been a good thing and a very bad thing over the years, before and after the fall of the Star League.

In this system, Robert was taking all three of his dropships with him to the planet. With all of the information they had been able to intercept, so far. It was leading Robert to believe, that if something was going to happen to his dropships? It was going to happen here. Everyone in the whole fleet was on high alert.

The rotation of fighters was made up of the two LTN-g15 Lightnings, the STU K5 Stuka, and one of the Ironsides. The other two Ironsides would be held back as a surprise to any attackers. It was well known, by now. That the company had already sold the Vulcan and Cheetah before they made it this far. That was only one of the tricks up his sleeve. One part of Robert's brain was berating himself for almost wishing that something would happen.

On the five day burn to the planet called Canopus IV. The head tech from the Hobgoblin asked for some face to face time for a special meeting. It would have to be for a very important reason, that a request had been forwarded to him reference needing a face to face meeting while they were in transit to a planet. The two dropships docked together, and they did a hull to hull passenger transfer. It was not wise to risk someone being able to intercept the information about this meeting. If they had a small craft? They would have sent it over to pick up the needed personnel. Robert hadn't been happy, that this meeting had not been done while they were all still connected to the Styx. He made sure something like this would not happen again.

Robert looked around the room and let his eyes rest on one person. "Okay tech. We have about an hour before we have to separate, to start slowing down to make a zero/zero arrival. What have you got for us?" Robert had been given an encoded message that had hints to what was needing to be covered. But they were only hints.

The Tech was old, but she looked only to be in her low 60's to those who did not know about the SLiE. "You have all seen the plans for modifying the Stuka, which was passed around not long after leaving Dunianshire. So far? We have been able to do most of the pre-hard work, already. We can pull all of the old heat sinks out of the Stuka. We will replace them with high efficiency ones, out of our spare parts for the other craft. I just need the word to start the modifications. The sooner we start, the sooner the craft will be combat effective."

The Captain of the Hobgoblin looked over to Robert. "The Stuka is a heat hog, and this would make it more effective in combat, but still only using the technology that is available to the Inner Sphere." It was not a surprise to anyone, that he had been one of the primary supporters of this non-Royal upgrade of a fighter.

Robert was looking at the plans. This was the third version of the modification that had crossed his desk since they had left New Circe. He was walking a very thin line about having Royal designs to support his mission. "30 second generation heatsinks is bit of an overkill. Do we have enough replacement heat sinks to do this?"

The tech looked at the commander and gave him a strange look. "Sir, we have a block of 50 laid in as spares for all of the Ironsides we could put into use. Unless we run into something that gives them some major damage? We will still have enough replacements to completely replace the heatsinks for two whole ship's heat exchange systems. We think that doing a one for one exchange will keep the center of gravity of the craft manageable for the avionics, and it would be just simpler to do. I would be surprised if the craft would use all of those in combat, but it would save us trying to adjust a lot of computer code."

Robert looked at the tech again, but he shot a short look over to the Carrier Captain. "How long would it take to finish the modifications; from the time the word is given? I need a best case and a worst-case timeline to make an informed decision." He could feel the eyes watching him from around the room. He was the fleet commander, and it was his call. And it would be his name alone, on the order forms on file. He had only invited the other ship's commanders, so that they were aware of the issue with the Stuka.

The tech would have jumped up out of her chair, but they were in zero g. "Sir! We could do this one modification in as little as four days, but we will maybe need seven days at the outside. If we try to modify the software? That could take weeks, if we ran into difficulties. I have some good people, and I think that they can do that job also."

Robert looked around the room, but the truth was that this was his call, and his call alone. He had to fight down a smile, as he saw the other looks around the room. "Then do it. I also want you to look at pulling the Holly four pack, and start looking for those large lasers that you wanted for plan you marked as 5 D. I think this system will be our best bet to find them, for a while. Start working on a software patch to make them work on that frame. If you have any issues, put it back in and we will wait until we get back home to make the switch. But I want you to keep working on it until then." He was thinking that the techs might as well use the time going to the planet effectively.

The meeting would need to go on for a half hour more, as each of the Captains brought up whatever it was that needed to be worked out now, instead of using a radio for the later scheduled meeting. When the two ships split up, after the meeting. The massive engines fired and started slowing all of the ships, so that they could come into orbit above the life-giving planet.

They had to stay in orbit for almost a full twenty-four hours waiting to land after reaching the planet. This time keeping the carrier in orbit was not an issue. There was even a small satellite habitat that catered to support craft that did not want to land on the planet. Robert used the time to contact the person that Lora said was supposed to be there. As it turned out, they were there. And as soon as they could, they would be at the drop port. Robert also contacted the Rob Roy. She was stationed at the capital's main space port, just below the three craft under Robert's command. They replied with the correct codes, and now Robert could breathe a little easier. He had been worried when they had not picked up the transponder codes coming from the right Merchant class jumpship.

When the two dropships had been allowed to land. They already had been subject to dozens of requests to attend the many different pleasure circuses, held around the planet year-round. These were not targeted request for them to enjoy the shows. They were more of a general advertisement to any ship that was even close to the planet. Those contacts did not slow down, even after the dropships had landed. This was the first time that anyone of Roberts's people had landed on this planet since the last major supply run. The first day was taken up by just doing some house cleaning and getting fresh air into the ships, and a little relaxing time for the crews.

Things started happening at sunrise on the first full day that they were on the planet. Robert had to deal with the local government types first. They wanted to open every box in the cargo holds, "to see" what he was really bringing to their planet. Robert was only willing to move half of the cargo that they had brought with them to this planet. They had a long way to go, yet and he did not want to drive down the prices.

His gut told him that these government types were trying to get a look at his whole inventory, and not just what he planned to put on the local market while he was breathing their air. Robert ordered only a set number of items to be pulled out from the cargo bays. He did pull out all of the Colonial made items. He wanted to sell them, as quick as he could. It would give him a better idea how many he could bring out on the next run, as he got deeper into "normal" House space. This planet should be able to absorb this number of this type of weapon, and it not become over saturated. At least that was what the numbers said.

Jess and the dropship's Captains were taking care of any would be shoppers. Robert was dealing with bigger issues. He was in the main meeting room in the Blockade Runner, when the closed hatch opened. Robert looked up to the swinging motion. He knows the man that entered, and he rose from his chair to hold out his hand.

"David Sargent, good to see that you made it. How did the trip go after the Split system?" Robert was evaluating the man the second he walked into the room. He had down checked a few points when the other man had not knocked before entering Robert's office.

David Sargent had been in command of the Merchant class jumpship and the Trojan she had carried on its back, after the two ships had gone their separate ways. David and his small command had made their own way to this system. It was hoped that they would be able to put the jumpship up for sale or maybe even get rid of the dropship, with enough lead time. At least they could have them sold before Robert and the rest of the team made it to the capital. That had been in the original plan, and it had been flushed out of the airlock well before Robert had made it all the way here.

David was an up and coming commander within the SLDF Navy. This little run was checking the box, for an independent command. When he got back home? He would be moved into a staff position, maybe within the main fleet ground staff or on a large space fleet unit. If he did well in one of those two assignments? Then he might get a large ship combat command of his own. While he was a younger person, most of his crew, to include his second and third in command were old supply run people. About a third had been on the last run under Robert's command.

David took a seat and smiled at the older man. "It went good. We had no issues. I would call it a dull run, compared to all of the reports I have read before we left. We kept to the uninhabited systems for the most part, just as we planned. We only saw one other jumpship the whole way from Split to here. That is until we got here. It's been an active pain, after that. We have had a few bites on the sale of the dropship, but nothing on the Merchant."

Robert could feel the young lion's emotions. He did not like working for someone of Robert's age, which was common in the world, both within the SLDF and the whole Inner Sphere in general. Maybe it was even that way going all the way back to the dawn of time. Robert understood that it was worse within "clan space". Now it was time to show the young one, why old lions lasted so long as the leaders in the wild. Robert made sure that he had just the right look on his face, so that it would not aggravate the young lion. An aggravated youth was not inclined to learn.

"I have that covered. I have a buyer stopping by, in about 30 minutes. Did you list your people and ships under our operational cover name, when you arrived in system?"

David looked at the commander, with a blank level gaze. "Yes sir, I did. I do not know why you wanted me to change on the agreed upon protocol." When they had left, the idea had been for the new ship to be listed as belonging to Evergreen Space lines. David did not know that he had started to slip back into proper clan speak, but Robert did, and he would remember it.

Robert hides a smile. It was time for lessen number one for a larger ship commander. That lesson was to think about all the whys, that a senior commanders' order might mean. "David, we have been avoiding picking up and shifting other people's cargo and personnel for going on now two missions. After we sell these two ships. How are you getting home?"

David looked at the older man. One that he thought was a failure, but he had no idea what the fleet commander was getting at. He ate a member of the Rook family and asked for help. "Sir? I am not following." The words tasted like ash as the crow went down his throat.

Robert was a little surprised, that the younger man did not get where he was coming from. "David? If we are not in the habit of giving others a charter or passenger service. How will it look? When we lift you and your crews off planet, when we leave or even being seen spending an extended length of time with them? It's going to draw a lot of attention from all over the place. If you belong to "the company", then it fits with our historic actions. WE are only carrying more of our own crews, and not a bunch of strangers. Then it is more likely that the information will just be filed away, and not actively investigated after we leave."

David blinked several times and let his mouth swing open. He had not thought about that. "Sir, that makes sense. I had not thought about people asking, about why you changed your pattern of operations and why. I guess I am more used to straight up combat, and not having to sneak around the edges." One thing that David strived for, was never making the same mistake twice. And he would make sure that he remembers the lesson that he had just been given. He would also remember how it had been given to him. Teaching and showing was a valuable lesson for a future navy warship commander.

Robert now let a slight smile slip onto his face. "Good! You also need to think about how to look at all of the angles, that will help you in straight up combat. Fighting humans is different than fighting the current crop of Cylons. Now I need a copy of all your reports. Did you highlight who made contact, about buying the dropship?"

David passed over a data storage device that would fit into Robert's computer. They spent some time going over each of the reports the younger man had put together. David was getting another lesson on why the SLDF navy had sent him to learn from this Commander. That stopped when Robert was notified that his next appointment was there.

David was getting ready to leave, when Robert waved for him to stay seated. By now David knew better than to ask why. He thought that another lesson was in the works. When the hatch opened again, four strangers walked into the room. They made introductions by first name, but not by job or duty. One part of David's mind noted that they were an even mix of male and female. After so many weeks on this planet, he knew that this was odd.

Robert could see that David wanted to break for the door. "David, Kimberly Jay is representing a shipping company that supports a good-sized slice of the MC and FWL border area. They are looking to increase their lifting capabilities, if we can come to a successful conclusion on a price for the Merchant jumpship." Robert was rewarded with raised eyebrows from the younger man. He had been beating the streets and vendors looking for buyers, and this man had one set up before his dropship's engines had been allowed to cool down.

What Robert did not say, was that Kimberly Jay was one of the members of the Families sent to the Inner Sphere many decades ago. He would not have said that any way, because he did not know how the other three people with her were connected to her. The older lion never gives up all of his hard-won secrets, at least not on the first, second or third meeting. He also would not tell anyone in this room that Robert was named after Kimberly Jay's grandfather.

Robert turned back to face the woman. "So, Miss Jay. Now that we are all in system. When would you like to inspect the ship?"

Kimberly smiles, a disarming smile. "Captain Copeland. I wanted to thank you for letting us have the first look at your ship. We have a certified inspection crew currently waiting at the jump point. They could start as soon as they get the word that you are okay with the inspection."

Robert smiled a salesman's smile and kept to the script, which had been used a hundred times already. "I say the word, is given. He picked up the phone and told the bridge to contact the correct traffic control, to let them know that an inspection team was cleared to a ship belonging to his company. Kimberly used her own handheld device and sent a message to her office. They were to radio to their people at the edge of the system, to leave as soon as they could. It would take hours for the radio message to cross the distance between the planet and the jump point. One inspection had been done when David had put the ship up for sale, just like Robert had done with the Scout. This was more or less, a show of interest and to double check the first public findings.

The deal was signed, and the money was put into escrow. It would be put into Copeland's local business accounts, if the inspectors accepted the ship. It was all paperwork, smoke and mirrors, and both parties knew this for a fact. Kimberly knew that the ship was in top shape. Her people would not have risked the run, in a ship that was less than "good". Soon 380 million C-Bills would be shifted around in the digital world.

While Robert was escorting the small group to an exit of the dropship. Kimberly passed him a note, it was not done on the sly. She was very public about the hand off. It was her contact information for future operations. Robert was betting that David did not catch it, he had been checking out the second woman who barely had said a word during the whole meeting. Robert had noticed, but he had hoped that the interest was not due to the low-cut shirt the quiet woman had been wearing.

While Robert was outside. He was finishing glad handing the people, who had just spent over a third of a billion C-bills. He was still doing that slimy job, when a well-maintained Trebuchet came striding up to the White Rabbit. Seeing a mech walking around the drop port was not that surprising, but they normally tended to stay on the lanes marked for heavy mass traffic. This one had left those lanes and was heading towards the two dropships.

It was alone and once it reached the burn line, it had stopped moving without needing to be ordered by the alert crew on the ship's bridge. Everyone on the ground was watching, as the side hatch popped open on the head assembly of the medium class battlemech. A chain ladder rolled out and a man in a cooling vest but not mech shorts, started to climb down the metal rungs.

Normally in a mech you wore as little as possible, to help you combat the life stealing effects of the heat that one of these war machines produced in action. This older man was in a normal combat field uniform, but he did have a coolant vest strapped over them. Once he reached the massive metal feet of his war-machine. The stranger removed the vest and straightened his uniform top, before starting closing on the group of onlookers. He even kept the vest in his off hand, as he walked over to the gaggle of bystanders near the open hatch to the dropship.

The older man walked ramrod straight, and at a military pace of 60-inch steps and 120 steps to the minute. When he was closer to the group, he started looking around them and talking. "My name is Colonel Newton Ramilie. The commander of Ramilie's Raiders. I'm looking for a Captain or Commander Copeland, to do some business." The voice was gruff. It was like he had been gargling razor blades for the last few decades for breakfast.

Robert nodded to Kimberly and her group, and then turned to the uniformed man. "I'm Copeland, and Captain will due for my title. What can I do for you Colonel?"

The Colonel put a slight smile on his face and walked closer to Robert. The escorts standing near the main hatch were starting to get worried, when they saw the hand come out in a greeting. It moved a little too fast for them to be comfortable, but when they saw that it was empty. They settled back down to just watching what was going on. Very few people would notice that their fingers had slowly moved the weapons selector switch from fire to safe.

"Good to meet you. I was told, by some of my people and some others that I trust. You might have some items for sale that I might be interested in."

Robert knew, from Lora, that his group had been the go-to unit for the hard jobs that the MC needed done for over a decade. Four of his sub-units were rated Elite, in the Intel reports that Lora had given him. Robert knew that something like that took a lot of work to reach that level of skill, even in the Inner Sphere. "I think we might have something, of use to almost a Regiment of battlemechs. We might have a few things that could be very useful to them." He points to the boxes and crates around the base of the dropship.

The Colonel and the Regiment Commander walked around the items on display, but the Colonel seemed to just be going through the motion. After one walk through, Robert turned to face the other military commander. "So, Colonel. What do you think? Do we have something your unit could use on its current contract? If you don't mind me asking. How have those Hawks MMM sent to you, with the updated cannons worked out?"

The Colonel looked around the items on display. "How do you know about them? Oh, never mind. You sold the cannons to MMM in the first place. They have worked out very nicely, thank you for asking. They are going to be the core of my new third Mech battalion. Yes, you do have some items that I would like to have Commander Copeland. But your prices are high. People out this far don't have that much money to spend, and we have to import so much to keep going as it is." Newton looked longingly over the display of weapons in front of him.

Robert had heard this line, or a version of it, a hundred times already. "Look Colonel. I'm just a simple merchant that has partners to keep happy. Ones that are also just trying to make a living. Besides, you would not have come out here. If you didn't have your mind set on something. So, just tell me what's on your mind. Then let's get down to doing some business." Robert was smiling as he spoke, and his tone was light.

The Colonel gave a big belly laugh that sounded odd to Robert's ears, and he tried to speak as he laughed. "What are you, a Stiener? Look Commander. I had to trade a good bit of stuff, when I got word you were coming out here. I moved some of the very choice's bits of salvage, which we have been able to collect and not use over the last few years. I even had to get a bit of a short-term loan, from the government."

Robert did not say anything. He just waited for the man to get to the point and stop using up oxygen. He did learn that this man had some money to spend, and he might be willing to do some trading on the side that was not cash based. Robert folded his arms and gave the military leader a level look, and kept his mouth shut, and continued to wait.

The Colonel picked up on the look and gave in to the merchant. He also had things to do, after he was done out here on the drop port. "Okay Captain, what I'm looking for, is a way to increase my Sky Pirates Aero Fighter unit. Before you ask, no they are not Pirates. It's just what they called themselves, even before we came out here to find a new home. Before we talk money. I would like to see that pair of Lightning's you have listed for sale."

Robert had not thought the Colonel would go that way. He had a mental bet going that he was going to try to do a mass buy of high-tech autocannons. It seemed that this mercenary wanted to spend some very big money. "Please give me a second, and I will see what I can do."

Robert went about ten steps off to one side and used the relay on the bridge to contact the Hobgoblin. When he returned to the mercenary colonel. He had news, but he did not know if it was good or bad news. "Colonel, those two pilots were on crew rest, but I can have them down in two hours. How long will it take to get your techs out here to inspect them?"

Colonel Ramilie smiled at the other man. He had hoped that they could take care of this today. He had heard rumors that this Captain was a professional, and he like to get things done without having to do a lot of backslapping, red tape cutting, or other games that were commonly played in this type of market. He also did not like to waste time or anyone else's time by playing games. "I can have them here when they land."

Ramilie put out his hand and again. After a firm handshake shared by the two men, he went back up into his battlemech. Robert had to assume that he had radioed back to his base, after he got back into the cockpit, but he had no way to know. Robert decided that he would stick around outside, helping Jess and the escorts keep an eye on things. About 90 minutes later, a small truck, maybe a 1-ton cargo type pulled up. In what look like a clown car event. People kept coming out of the small truck's four doors. All of them had tools and greasy uniforms. They screamed Tech, without needing to say a word.

Colonel Ramilie exited his mech for the second time and talked to the newcomers, before joining Robert again. This time Robert was under a shade providing tent. If he was going to do some business? He was going to be as comfortable as he could get away with. He was of a half a mind to just let the Cargo Master handle this, but part of his mind was itching about having access to the best unit in the MC's military. Robert had let his mind wonder about how to ask the right questions, and he did not notice the military officer until he was in speaking distance.

"Captain Copeland, my aero fighter techs are here. About how long till the fighters land?" The tone the Colonel had used was the same as he would use with any other member of his senior staff.

Just as he stopped talking. A loud boom went by overhead, and Robert gave the other man a sly smile. "I would bet that they will be on the ground, as soon as the traffic control tower gives them clearance to land. Why don't you have a seat? Would you like to go inside, or stay outside so that you can keep an eye on your people?" Robert knew that this was going to take a while to complete.

The Colonel looked around, and it did not take long to make a decision. "Well, Captain? If you have some iced tea? I would prefer to stay out here with my people."

Robert asked one of the crew to bring some cold drinks out, and he offered a seat to the other military man. Robert and Jess sat with the Colonel as they sipped their cold drinks, but nothing much was said between them. Every question was answered with either a noncommittal or one-word reply. That is until they saw the two fighters being towed toward them. As soon as the towing tugs were disconnected, and almost before the pilots could get out of their craft. The pair of craft were swarmed by a mob of strange techs. The Cargo Master quickly took charge of the situation, before it could get out of control. They sent the two pilots to go inside the Lisbon Maru to wait for further orders.

Now that the 2 fighter craft were on the ground and the techs were going over the machines in a well-orchestrated dance. Robert looked up from his computer, after letting the crew of local techs work. He was guessing that the inspection should be about halfway done. "Okay Colonel. Let's talk about price for these two 50ton LTN-g15 Lightning class fighters."

The Colonel was a hard negotiator and drove the price down. When his people showed up with their report on the inspection? Robert could then retaliate and raise the asking price back up some. The Colonel was a little crest fallen, about the rise in price. He fought back as hard as he could, but the product was just too good and both parties knew it.

"Well Captain, looks like you have a deal at 4.8 million. I was hoping to get you down to a lower price point, so that I could get a few of those new type of cannons. You're stuck on 400k for them, aren't you?"

Robert nodded his head up and down. "Colonel you know that they are worth it, and just think what you will be able to do when you hit a pirate base. You will be able to rain damage on them from a good bit of range, without that much heat. I have a long list of things to pick up, for my partners, and to be frank. I have to get every C-bill that I can out of what we have to sell."

The Colonel looked like someone had just kicked his dog. "I know what you're saying Captain, but I can only get one of those things with what I have left in the bank." He had really needed those big hitters in his unit. He needs big hitters, and those Lightnings were packing the massive autocannon that were perfect for his unit. There were only so many mission types, that the smaller Sabers could handle. Sometimes you just needed a big hammer, and only light fighters were made in the MC.

Robert was reaching over to shake hands to close the deal, and then stopped before they could touch hands. The Mercenary Colonel also stopped mid-movement and his eyebrow's shot up. He was worried about what might have changed, and that was what it looked like had just happened. He was worried that he had just lost the deal of the year. Robert gave himself a shake that the other man saw. Robert put his hand back out to grasp the other man's hands, before the other man could recoil and pull the offered hand out of reach.

"Sorry, Colonel lets close this deal. But I had, what I think might be a good idea." The two men shake on the deal to sell the two 50ton fighters. Jess saw that the money was transferred. The tower was notified, so that the two craft could be towed to the area of the base that the Raiders used. It would not take long for word to spread "in the market" about the sale of a lance of medium weight fighters.

When all of the paperwork was done. Ramilie looked at the merchant. He was trying to work out what was going on behind those blue eyes and still face. He had seen the admittedly thin intelligence files on this man. But one of the key notes, was that this was a very shrewd man. "Okay Captain. What is on your mind?"

Robert shot a look over to Jess, but she was not following were Robert was about to go. She looked just as confused as the mercenary was. "When we were closing that deal. I remembered you saying something about choice salvage you might have on hand. That always is kind of a soft spot for me. Now you know we have a Stuka, on our carrier. We are short some items to support her, if we run into any major problems. I was thinking that maybe you might have a few Exostar Large Lasers or something that will work in their place, left in your caches of salvaged equipment. If you do? We might be able to do some more business. I decided that I did not want to tie what we had already done to a maybe, and risk losing both deals. I wanted also to keep this deal on the quiet side, so that it's not talked about in the local bars tonight." Everything he had just said was true, just not in the way that the mercenary leader was thinking that it was.

Colonel Ramili picked up a small radio, and put an ear bug in. This was going to be a short-ranged transmission, and he did not want this merchant to be able to use anything he might overhear against him. He asked the question to his head tech, and with a poker face took the answer. He was working behind the power ball, and he knew it. He was willing to risk it, for a chance to get one of those Star League level high speed cannons.

"Okay Captain. We have some Exostars or knockoffs of that brand that we are not using right now. They are earmarked as being held for combat replacements at our main support base."

Robert also had his poker face on, and then put a sly smile on his face. He was about to change the rules of the universe. "Okay Colonel. This is a onetime deal. The going rate for those types of weapons is 100k, but at the factory. If you can get four of them here, and they pass inspection by one of my people? I will trade one of my ultra-cannons to you, for four of them. Are you game?"

The Mercenary let the confusion show fully on his face. Was this merchant going to trade a Star League era weapon, for four old and used large laser class weapons? Having four of those weapons at once was not uncommon, but it was not that common either. He could get four replacement large lasers faster than he could get an ultra-class weapon any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

"I think we have a deal, Captain Copeland." It was a simple statement, and after it was done. He made another radio call to have four of the weapons dropped off at his location. The two newly acquired double fire cannons would be picked up by the dropping off flatbed truck, which had been carrying the four large bore lasers.

The Colonel was watching the uploading of the old Star League weapons, from the foot of his beloved machine. He also was watching the strange merchant captain finish up a deal for some computers and Blazer rifles from someone he did not recognize. When that deal was done, the Captain was heading his way. Something clicked in his head, as the merchant closed in on the stationary mech. The Colonel had a smile so large on his face, that it was starting to hurt. The Colonel put his hand out one more time to thank the merchant captain. He liked working with the government of the MC, but it was always a good idea to have some backup sources of support. He had learned that the hard way when he had to flee with his unit out from under the thumb of the Cappies.

"Captain! I want to let you know that I will remember what you have done for me today." He pulled Robert in a lot closer than ether man would normally feel comfortable with, and the mercenary pitched his voice very low. "Be careful with that ComStar spook going by the name of Igarashi Miya, while you are here in the MC. He offered me a job some time ago. He wanted me to take out your Mule dropship, and I would get a bonus for any other ship we could bag. I'm glad he low balled the compensation package when he offered me the deal. As far as I know, he is now looking for a medium to heavy squadron of fighters to go after you."

The mercenary released Robert's hand, and they put a little more distance between the two. Robert nodded his head, but he was careful to keep his face under control. He never would have thought a Merc would willingly give up a meal ticket, and then warn him about a contract that had been put out on him. All for no cost. Robert had only treated the man, like he would anyone else. Now it looked like it had come back in a payoff, in a surprising way. Robert made a note to remember the good turn this man had just given his people.

"Thank you, Colonel. I will keep that in mind and thank you for the heads up. I hope that we can do some business again in the future." Robert was not just saying words. He was making a mental promise to see if he could help this Colonel down the road.

The mercenary nodded and then quick, for his age, went back up the chain ladder showing all of those decades of experience. Robert walked back to the shady side of the dropship while the battlemech was powered up, and soon it was moving. With that sell done. Robert passed a message that he was calling a meeting of the Dropship's Captains.

The meeting was short and held on the Mule. Robert passed along the information. It was not confirmed, but the Merc did not have a reason to lie. He did have a reason not to say anything at all, but he had. Some in the meeting thought that it was bad form for a merc to let a target know, that they were being targeted. Robert did not think so. It would have made the meeting go easier, if the Colonel had sold him the information instead of just given it to them for free.

After the meeting. Robert, Jess, and the Cargo Masters went looking for the medical and some other hard to find equipment that they needed back home. The MC capital was well known to have the best medical equipment around the whole Inner Sphere. The Star League in Exile could make the very high-end items it needed. But the MC could have a lot of medical stuff, which would fill a lot of specialized needs and the more general medical needs of the planet. This was not the normal lower tech items, but this planet had items that were as good or even in some ways better. Then what the old Star League could have or did make in its heyday.

Robert was surprised when he was contacted by a member of the MC government while he was out working with some of the local suppliers. It was less than 48 hours after the Mercenary Colonel, had left with his new weapons. They were looking at picking up the Rob Roy, if it passed inspection by a certified government representative. It kind of made since that a major rim power would want this type of ship. It was called a Blockade Runner, after all. This class of dropship was first built not far from this nation state. Being known as a Blockade Runner might not endear the design to the SLDF. But out on the edge of space? It was a badge of honor.

Robert would bet, that the Colonel had been a test run of some kind on Copeland. It was a good bet that he told people, that Copeland was a straight shooter along with a few other hints about the man and company. Or it could have been another one of the local shoppers, which might have been working for MC intelligence on the side. In the end it did not matter, to Robert and his crews. The inspections on the Rob Roy had been done weeks ago, and a copy of the results had been filed for public viewing not long after David had made landfall. Those had only been done, because of what Robert had learned while working with Lora.

The meeting was held in the Maru. They thought that they had Robert over a barrel, because of the sale of the jumpship already. What was he going to do? Leave the dropship behind. He was able to counter the banter; with a statement, that he had already checked with the new owners of the jumpship. They were so happy with the deal. That they had offered to carry the Trojan to their home system, so that it would be closer to the center of trade with the rest of the Inner sphere for free. The MC Representative caved in soon after, and soon another 200 million C-Bills were transferred to the growing accounts of Copeland Supply Salvage and Resale Company. The government might not have been that happy with that turn of events today. But the local banks were very happy with the turn of events.

It was good timing for the sale. The other two dropships were working on settling in the skeleton crew of the dozen personnel that had come from the dropship. Three hours after the dropship was sold? The eight members of the Merchant class jumpship landed at the space port on some rented seats on a landing boat. Thanks to good planning before they had left New Circe. The space had been already set aside for them to use for the rest of the trip. The crews would be split between the two dropships. Those additional crew also would add some personnel for defense or battle damage repair, if needed. The only major player on this planet that did not stop by or even contact Robert, or his staff. They were the people over at MMM.

There was a hard knock on the open hatch. Robert looked up and waved for the two women to enter his office. He was surprised when he had been told that his next appointment had arrived at the base of the dropship, but it was not a single person. It was a pair that were coming up to see him. This turn of events had intrigued him, and he was wondering what was about to happen.

The two women took seats closer to Robert than the open hatch. He shot a look first at Kimberly and then to the other woman. Kimberly saw the look and she had a good guess on why it had been first directed at her.

Kim let a smile come to her face. She was about to enjoy this. "Congratulations on your promotion to Commander. I know Dad will be very happy to hear about it." She pulled a data storage device out of her jacket and passed it over to Robert. "He wanted me to pass this to you, if I saw you. I know that he is not expecting a letter from you."

Robert slowly reached out and took the device. He did not pull it from sight, but it now was closer to him. "Thank you, Kim. I was glad to find out that Lora was able to get ahold of you. But I am wondering about your co-worker."

Kim was now beaming with a smile. "Oh! This is Sophie Scholl; her family had been found by dad some time ago." Kim stopped talking and waited.

Robert was going down the list of names in his mind, but he could not connect a Family and Scholl. He was starting to see that the daughter and her father had a few annoying traits in common. After not saying anything for a few seconds. He gave his one-word reply. "Really?" This was his way of letting her know he was not going to play games, and that she was on thin ice.

Kimberly caught the tone and let the smile fall. "Sir, she is family. Her family was one of the first to come back. They fell out of contact when their handler died, when we lost Socrates. They have been sticking to the work ever since."

Robert's eyes went wide. The Socrates had been the first jumpship lost by the SLiE while making supply runs, after raiding the slave pens of the Draconis Combine. Robert knew that Kim's dad had been trying to find lost members of the family for as long as he could remember. Robert was not smiling, but he was intrigued by this revelation. "It is always good to make contact with a once lost family," was his flat reply to this news.

Kimberly went into business mode, now that it was time to end the games. "After Dad retired, I took his place within SAFE. My main job is tracking weapons sells between the FWL and any of the outlying states. I have about a dozen part time agents under my command. Dad had hoped that Sophie would be able to move higher than any of us, but that has not worked out. She is stuck doing analytical work. She is on the shit list, after breaking her bosses' hand. He had put it someplace that his wife would not have approved of."

Now Robert connected all the dots. He had been hoping that Kim was following along in her father's footsteps. Now he might be able to hand off a very thorny issue. "That is good to know. I do have a file to pass to your father, which is personal." He reached over and he released a data stick that he had been hiding in his palm. Then he reached over and pulled a note pad over.

"We will be coming back more often, but in smaller numbers to pick up items that are needed. We need to have some way to control the amount of surprises we have been running into. This is a list of names that I don't know if your father has. I want both of you to work with Lora. She does not have the training that the pair of you do, but she is smart and has an impressive amount of contacts. How you run things will be up to you all to work out, but she controls the purse strings. These are some of the issues that I know need to be looked at."

Robert stopped talking and writing at the same time. After he made eye contact with both women, he passed the pad over. The two women took the pad and started studying the information. Thanks to their training, they would not take the pad out of the office. The meeting would go on for another hour, and it would only have one addition to this meeting. Robert wanted Jess to talk to these two. Bye the end of the meeting both sets of participants were happy with the outcome of the meeting. It was not going to be an easy mission, which had just been given out.

Jess was able to have another meeting with Kimberly and Sophie, before they had lifted off. It had been requested by the two local women. They had been able to come up with some answers that Commander Copeland had been looking for. They had found out why MMM on this planet had not made contact with them. As it turned out. Most of the local members of that company had not believed that it was worthwhile to contact them, even after Mike's reports. They thought that Copeland was not worth the risk to do business directly with.

That was both surprising to Robert and not. MMM was a major company, and like anything that big you had clicks you had to deal with. This had not stopped Robert and his crews from finding a lot of the items that they needed to buy or sell. In short, if this part of MMM did not want to work with Robert. There were a lot of others that would gladly step in and take their place.

At first, they had feared that the attack would happen in this system. Now, being here and seeing that the locals were actively patrolling at a very high force level. Robert and his staff had worked out, that it would be a bad idea to do something aggressive in this location. At least if they were not connected to the local government, and after what the Mercenary Colonel told them. That did not seem likely. It was a risk that Robert knew he was running, but he felt it was worth it.

Robert and the two dropships under his command lifted off right on the hour that they had planned and published. They met up with their escort, the Hobgoblin, in high orbit over the planet. Supplies were transferred between the three different dropships, in orbit. It could have waited until they got to the jumpship, but Robert was betting that they were on short time.

Among the cargos that were moved over to the Carrier in orbit, were two more of the crated fighters. They were transferred while they were in the shadow provided by the Carrier. They were to replace the two 50ton fighters that had been sold, with a pair of more powerful 65ton craft. The Exostars were sent over also by a rented MK VII. And soon the Stuka was going to be turned into a true laser boat from Hades. The techs would only have about a week to get the whole job done. But they were not caught flat footed, and a lot of work had been done while the weapons were still stuck ground side. The Techs were using the open area to their advantage, in every way that the dropship's captain would let them.

The cargo space on both ships were quickly filling up, but they still had over a third of their capability still in an empty mass condition. They still had half of the ultras and computers to sell, and almost half of the advanced PPCs were still sitting in their freshly made shipping boxes. Robert had been letting only one to three of each of the high-tech weapons out, at a time. Almost all of the Blazers were gone, as well as were most of the other Colonial made weapons. The rate of sales on the computers had been a pleasant surprise. Now all Robert and his crew needed to do was find what was on the shopping list.

Still Robert was betting that they only would have enough stuff to sell to two or three more systems. He would rather have more Blazers to sell on the next trip, if they were going only to hit major worlds. The known weapons were selling better than an unknown weapon. It was not like he could start a sphere wide publicity campaign centered on the Colonial made projectile weapons. Still he could only bring what they could on the next trip. It was not like they would have another jumpship to sell on the next trip. Not unless something major changed back home. Then again? He knew that stranger things had happened, and he was only a Captain in a large Navy. He did have a major balance in the bank after selling of the dropship and jumpship. That would go along with what they had before and had not used up yet.

The trip to the jump point was uneventful, and it did not take long for the three ships to dock onto the Tramp class ship. Robert had an itch in the center of his back. He felt like someone was watching him and his crews, as they went about their jobs near the jump point. He could not prove anything, but it was a strong feeling. He was both happy and dreading, leaving this highly populated system. It would be some time before they were in a system like this again, with so many would be witnesses just floating around. They were leaving the system four hours after all three dropships had docked.

 **Notes** :

 **30 Double heatsinks**. Yes, it would make the sled a zombie. But I was more worried about center of gravity on the craft and making any needed software changes. While in the field, you just do not let your services unit make their own changes to your software in the fire control system on an M1 or AH64. I had been planning on updating the Stuka with DHS and more Large Lasers from the start of this story.

 **The Favor Trade**. A lot of combat units track who pulled who's butt out of the fire last. It is not uncommon if you're nice to someone, they will be nice back in combat. In the case of the Mercenary unit. He was letting someone know, that they had someone looking to get them. If he or a close friend had taken the mission? He would not have let the mission out of the bag. That would have been bad for business and friendships in that line of work.

 **How to conduct a meeting without using radios, and you do not have small craft?** This had started as a mental exercise, and then I had a last-minute meeting pop up at work. That got me to wondering about how something like that would be done, in the setting I have been working in. The command staff was so worried about "an attack" that they forgot about the normal mission stuff, and it came back to bite them in the butt.

 **How do you modify any of your aero fighters while on a deployment**? I just wanted to touch on what might need to be done, outside of game rules.


	30. Chapter 30 30 April 3048

**Chapter 30**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **30 April 3048 the second run**

 **Xanthe III on the way to Lopez.**

The time spent traveling and trading after leaving the Canopus system had been uneventful for the little convoy. The time had been well used to get the pilots use to their newer and heavier rides, all without being seen by any unwanted eyes and ears. The learning curve was not that bad, for most of the pilots. Each of the pilots had been fully qualified on this type of craft, before they had left the hidden system.

The trick was to make sure that no one saw that the Hobgoblin was packing more than just one Ironsides with its lone Stuka, that they had needed to buy more spare parts for. It was good training had by the flight crews, and the gunners on the dropships and jumpship who were using the fighters for simulated target practice with their clan grade weapons. That was almost as important, as the cargos they were getting, when they stopped in a system that had a trading station or the rare worthwhile planet to land on.

The stop in Xanthe III was not expected to gain much in the way of cargos. It was hoped that the ice ball of a planet might have some strains of extreme cold tolerant food plants. They also did have a nice semiconductor industry, which might have some extra supplies on hand for trade with anyone with enough money. Robert stuck to the plan that he had briefed the others on, and only the White Rabbit would make the run planet side in this hole in the wall system.

As it turned out Robert had lucked out, and the planet was only a three day burn at one g from the jump point. Robert would use the time to talk to the people dirt side, before they landed. They were close to the Capellan border. Robert was not surprised, that there was a mixed mercenary battalion on the mostly ice-covered planet. It was a warning from that unit, that let them know something was up.

The White Rabbit was just about to flip and start slowing down to achieve orbit, when a frantic young voice came over the speakers plugged into the ships main radio. "White Rabbit! Pull back! It's a Trap! They are waiting for you!"

That was it, and static filled the now open channel. Every eye on the bridge of the dropship was looking at the speaker with wide eyes. The message cut off, as quick as it had started, and the bridge's duty crew were looking at each other with huge eyes. They did not know what to do. Jess was on the bridge as the duty officer, and she gave the order before alerting the rest of the ship. She had already learned a lot, from the different Captains that she had worked with on this mission.

"Flip us, now! Put power to the engines! Sound the Alert!" The last statement was the only part that she said in any real volume. That did not mean that the other words were not filled with stress and strain.

The ship was still at one g thrust, so when the ship flipped? It was in unexpected zero g condition for about 20 seconds, before they again felt the pull towards the deck plates by the massive plasma engines. When the Captain of the Dropship made it on to the bridge. He was followed on his heals by a bleary-eyed Robert. The Captain was not happy with Jess.

"What the Frak are you doing!" He did not even realize that he broke the speaking protocol, by his statement.

Jess looked around him and saw the Commander not ten feet behind the dropship's Captain. "Sir, we picked up a single transmission coming from the planet. It was a warning of a trap, waiting for us, by name. I ordered the ship flipped and started to slow her down."

Now that she had a few minutes to think about it. Jess was starting to second guess her reaction to the warnings. "We are at one g, so that if it does turn out to be false. We will not blow our orbit, to badly. We have not been able to raise anyone planet side, yet. Traffic control has not replied to all attempts to contact them after the warning was received. It's like someone cut all long-ranged communications to the planet with a knife."

The Captain turned and looked at the Commander, and Robert took command of the situation. "Keep trying to raise dirtside. If we don't hear from them in another five minutes?" He turned to be face to face with the other officers. "Captain increase the deceleration burn to 1.2gs and plot a course back to the jump point. Let the Styx and the other dropships know what happened and put them on full alert."

The Captain of the White Rabbit nodded and went about his business. They were not going to slow down that much faster with only a .2 g's harder burn, but it would build up the longer it was used. When they had gone an hour and still there was no contact with the planet? Robert had the dropship go to the maximum safe thrust of 1.5 g's. It was now that they really started to slow down the 3,000ton dropship. It also made the engine pointed at the planet a lot hotter, and thus more visible to them about what the ship was doing. They were three hours into the higher energy burn, when the radio came back on. It was not from the still quiet planet. They still were falling towards the planet, but every minute at this rating was hanging the math for an orbital insertion. Thanks to the power of the plasma engines, they still could make land fall. It just would take a lot longer.

"Robert, this is Jules. You might be getting some company soon. You might want to step on it. I can have three or four eggs ready for dinner, if you want."

The message was sent encrypted, but it had an underlying code just in case. The eggs were not about any chickens. It also did not mean dropships. He was saying that he could launch three or four fighters and send them his way. Robert did not have to look around the bridge, to know what they were thinking.

"Captain please bring the ship up to full power. Give it all to her, as soon as you can. Then tell the Styx that she might need all the eggs, that she can get and not us."

1.5g's is hard on the body. But with training? It can be endured for a long time. 2.5gs? Now that was just ugly, and it was hard on the ship. It was almost as hard on the ship, as it was hard on the crew inside of her. They were still closing on the planet, as the engine went to full power. The abused of the people inside the ship had started at the same time it worked harder to slow down. It would take another four hours of this abuse, before the dropship stopped closing with the planet, and it had started to move back towards the jump point.

It was going to be a long four hours. Everyone that could was ordered to be in their beds as much as possible. That would help, a little, and it will keep them almost combat ready. Whoever was on shift when the engines went to full power, were going to stay on shift until the engines were throttled back. This was why everyone in the SLDF Navy had to have a full-blown medical exam every year, or upon the return of a major mission. This kind of g loading could kill a person, if they were not very medically fit. Warships were expected to do twice this g loading for days if not weeks on end, and it was why Robert had been down check from serving on them.

Igarashi Miya was upset, but he was not showing it on his face. He was sitting planet side on Xanthe III. He was so upset, that he should have had steam visibly blowing out of his ears. After so many miss-steps? He had taken over control of this mission, personally. That did not stop all of the problems from coming up and slapping him in the face. He had been advised to be more hands on with ROM's dealings with this one problem.

That had been after the ComStar tracking ship had lost this strange company and jumpship, that seemed to have come out of nowhere after not being seen for decades. ROM had still kept looking for them, but it had become the butt of a few jokes at some high-level meetings within and outside of ROM. That is until Copeland had showed up selling Star League weapons tech and computers again. Them showing up had started some large balls rolling.

A deep data search had pulled up some odd facts, that were not looking good for ComStar. When Copeland had disappeared off the edge of the map, things had settled out some. But word had already started to spread about, how they had stood up to the massiveness that was ComStar. That could not be allowed to stand. One of the great houses had already done it, and it had been able to get away with it. Now this small "company" was back, again, and they were up to their same old tricks. ROM could not allow this to continue unchecked.

Igarashi was sitting in his grounded Command version of the Overlord class dropship. When word had gotten back to him, and the others within the upper layers of ComStar. That this Captain Copeland had been seen again, it had kicked over a hornet's nest of activity. He had already been given clearance to capture them. That is as long as it did not point back to closely, to ComStar as a whole or part. He was told to handle them and find out where the rest of their people were. ROM was keeping that last information firmly within its own ranks. Sometimes it was better that ComStar kept secrets from the rest of ComStar.

Igarashi was starting to believe in the demon Murphy. The head of ROM had run into the first issue, when early on into this planning. He had approached the main high-end mercenary unit in his area. He had thought that the offer he had made to Newton Ramilli was fair. If the Raiders could capture Copeland and his people? The Mercenaries would get all of their damaged units repaired, and ROM would turn over two rebuilt 45ton VND-1R Vindicators. Igarashi had pointed out that they would have to give up all salvage, that might be collected on the mission. It was to pay for the Raiders transportation to any ambush point that ROM wanted. They would look at selling anything but the Mule to the mercenaries, at list price and as is after the battle. The target only had six fighters, with a known break down of types. So, there was not that much risk involved to them. He had been truly shocked with the mercenary unit, that they had not only said no. But had basically thrown him out of their small offices on Canopus.

That rejection had not stopped the Head of ROM in the MC. It had only added fuel to his fire to take care of this issue. After all the Merc would not have said no to ComStar, if this Copeland had not shown that it was possible to do so and survive. That was one of the reasons that the head of ROM in the MC was on an ice world on the FWL and Confederation border, and not in a nice warm office. It had not taken long to find a unit that matched his need, after he had put his mind to it full time.

After some modifications, he had a workable plan. The "Pirate unit" had been a down on its luck mercenary unit before it had started working for a different department within ComStar. It had been providing security around some well-kept secrets, not far from his area of operations. With all the parts in play? All it needed was for the parts to get pushed closer together, and then the magic would happen.

Igarashi had gotten the first bit of data from a loose lipped crewmember off of one of the dropships he was targeting. It was a very detailed plan of their travels, for the next few months. This information was confirmed by a very deep buried spy connected to MIM. With this head's up. ROM's agents got the set pieces moving in the right direction.

The first part of the plan had been when a few Level IIs, had landed on Xanthe III. ComStar had its hooks deeper into the FWL, then in any of the other great houses. The dropship had been on the ground for a few days, watching and acting empty to the locals. When the time was right, and the Tramp Class had left its last point. A Magellan class ship had sent an HPG message to him. This Command Overlord had been his command post for the exercise, that he had planned out. He had sent a few Level IIs of battlemechs to take control of the local fighting units. He had been assured, that the Guards had everyone under control within a few hours. When the M/V Styx showed up in this system. That was where things had gone wrong, first.

Igarashi looked at his screens for the hundredth time. Why had they chosen to come in at the zenith point? They had been using the nadir point for all of their last five jumps and most of the other reported jumps, had all been at the Nadir points. So why the change this time? That put the first kink in the great ambush plan he had put together. It took some quick math and an equally quick message to have the attack happen at a different pirate point. Then a scout group of locals had been able to get away from one of the "overlooking" mercenary units. He had not been that worried about a few light mechs, when the first report had come into his command ship.

Copeland's dropships were not going to be allowed to land on this planet. Unless they crashed into the ground, due to battle damage that is. He had been out of the field a long time, and out of a battlemech for even longer. He had forgotten that one of the escaped mechs, had a very long ranged radio built in to is machines human like hull. That pilot had been able to get a warning off, before a nearby Guard mech could activate its Guardian ECM and cut off the transmission.

With his target aware that something was wrong? It had flipped and started to decelerate an hour early. It was now cutting the massive amount of speed, that it had picked up on the way in. If he did not do something quickly? They were going to get away, again. He quickly sent a message to the HPG class B station on this planet and he had ordered a message sent. The message was not going to a planet or even a star system. It was just an empty spot in space. The ship there was able to pick up the message up out of the back-ground noise, on its secret mobile HPG station. It would still take a few hours to get ready for the jump, but that was nothing that had not been planned for, one way or the other.

The White Rabbit did not have the specialized equipment to detect the energy wave that preceded a jumpship's arrival into this local area. The first warning was when the long jumpship was picked up on the Blockade Runners light speed sensors. Only the largest military dropships had the equipment and crew to detect something like that. The bridge crew of the dropship was strapped into the thick padded seats. Now they were very thankful for every millimeter of the thick padding, even if it was hard to keep clean. It was hard to think while you're were pulling Gs like that, but the crew was sharp and well trained. The White Rabbit was just crossing the line in space, where they had been when the warning had been first sent out to them.

"Sir! Jump ship on Radar! She must have come in at a pirate point. Plotting the information now." It took three times as long to get those words out, compared to normal. It was very hard to yell, when you were mainly fighting just to breathe, much less trying to talk.

The g loading was so high, that no one was walking around the bridge much less the rest of the ship. They could get viewed data on some smaller screens near them, without having to move too much. Robert was looking at the screen as it now showed a red dot to show it was a threat. It was almost on top of the green line on the same display. That had been the line that the dropship had been taking, before it changed its' mind after the warning.

Jess saw the information, and her command training kicked in. "Good god! It would have jumped right on top of us!"

Robert had to clinch his teeth to speak clearly. He was getting to old for this kind of thing. "Not really. Look at the scale of your display, but it would have been close. Real damn close!"

Before he could add more. To make sure that Jess did not say anything more, that would distract the bridge crew another report came in. "Sir, she is an Invader class jumpship. I am picking up two heat blooms, that combat launched off of her. Looks like a Monarch and Leopard CV class dropper are burning hard off her back."

The person giving the report stopped talking. Maybe it was to catch their breath, because the gravity load or stress loads that they were working under. They were not quiet for long. "Picking up smaller targets separating from both dropships. I have four, now six craft pulling away from the larger contacts."

Again, it was quiet for a few seconds. "Sir, I have a count of ten targets moving away from the dropships. The dropships are heading our way, and we are counting two Corsairs, two Samurais, and two maybe TR-13 Transgressors. Calling it Group One, Group Two looks to be four Dragonstar class 150ton small craft by their electronic emissions. I would bet that they are Assault model ships. Group Three and the slowest group is the pair of dropships. They are still making a burn towards us, at high Gs."

Robert looked over very slowly to face the captain of the White Rabbit. He had been less sure of Robert's hunch, than any of the other officers about the warning they had been given on Canopus. "Medium to Heavy fighter squadron. Now it looks like they added some ground troops or marines to board us with."

Robert had to stop talking to catch his breath. "I think you might want to let your counter boarding people know. It is your ship captain, but a stern chase is a long one. I am just glad, that they are starting from Zero speed after the jump. We have some of the same distance that they will have to cross, and we will be running to keep the range as open as we can."

Jules picked up the arrival of the jumpship before it had appeared in system, by about three minutes. With the maybe second jaw of the trap sprung on them. It was time to let the attackers know how badly they miscalculated the prey. They were going to try to take the White Rabbit, and maybe even jump out of the system with her. This left the Styx open to affect the overall battle. Jules made a mental note that this was very 2D thinking.

Jules launched the Hobgoblin toward the Blockade Runner, and soon it was putting its brood of fighters into the deep black. Soon five Star League era fighters massing 65tons each was burning to help their fleet commander. It was followed by the 100ton Stuka. The odds were still not in Commander Copelands favor, but it was a lot closer to even now. What would be the telling factor, would be the weapons on the craft and training of all of the crews that were about to be in combat.

It had taken the White Rabbit over a day of traveling, to get where it had been. It would take even the slowest unit, the Stuka, only a few hours to cover that same distance. During all of that time. The Dropship was doing all it could to meet up with its smaller on rushing friends. All the while, the enemy fighters were trying to catch the other dropship, before that happened. They had only been expecting to face a single lance of fighters and not a full squadron.

David Klod was not a name found on any of the Clans rosters of blood names. His family had been rescued as slaves decades ago. He had stayed in the active duty military after his draft service had ended, so that he could save other slaves and to kill any slave takers he happened to run across. He tested out with having very good aero pilot skills at a young age, and he had been a Sled driver for more than a decade. He had just been down checked from front line units, before the Colonials appeared over his planet.

Even in war? He had not been able to get one of the new jump fighters. To be a good Sled driver? You did not need to be the best pilot or even a "good" pilot. David would have only rated as Regular skills in the piloting skills department within the Inners Sphere. What you needed to be a good Sled driver was to be a good shot, and David was a very good shot. Sleds or Lead Sleds were the slang terms for a 100ton fighters or flying weapons battery.

When the wave of six fighters of the SLDF Navy in Exile was about 300 miles from the White Rabbit. They could tell that they were going to win the race to make it to the fleeing dropship. With the help of the fire control systems of the White Rabbit. Quickly targets were given out to each of the onrushing SLDF pilots. This first attack was going to be a classic slashing attack. It would start at Long-medium range, and then they would close into knife fighting range less than 30 seconds later. All before they would pass each other.

David settled a little deeper into his armored cockpit and let his targeting systems feed him information about his primary and secondary targets. David went over all of his craft systems one more time, while he waited for the short but very violent combat to start. Most people did not know it, but he had been the one pushing for the upgrades to his craft.

At first, they had just pulled the old heatsinks out and replaced them one for one with second generation ones. It was not too much work, and it was quick. Then they had gotten the word about the exostars the Commander had found. To make room in the nose of his sled for those weapons. The Short range four pack and ammunition had to be ripped out. That was still not enough mass, so they had taken out seven of the high efficiency heatsinks they had just put in. This was leaving him with "only" 23 of them to handle the heat of his weapons or engine. Now his Sled was a little hotter of a ride, but he now had six large bore lasers firing forward to go along, with a twenty rack of long-range missiles. It was for those days, that you needed a bigger hammer and the six pack of gamma beams was just not enough. He was a real heavy hitter now.

David was looking at the information on his HUD, and he did not like what he saw. He pushed his controls stick a little more to the right and he watched the data change. His firing control systems did not like the adjustment, but he did not care. The Transgressor had three of the same type of lasers as the larger Stuka was now packing, but it was not the gunner that David was. And that was what he was counting on.

When it was the right time, the computer told him it was time to fire. His trigger pull was about a half second behind the rest of his lighter group as they unleased their paired PPC's. They had just fired at the edge of medium and long range. Most pilots would not have wanted to waste the shots or risk the heat buildup with the low probability shots they had just taken against targets moving that fast. That all changed when the "pirate" ships were fired on. No one likes to just sit there and just take maybe death causing weapons fire. The on-rushing enemy fired back. Too bad that it was a bit rushed and Copeland's people were not rushed in the least when they had pulled the triggers.

David did not feel the first and only hit from the three large bore lasers from the enemy fighter on his craft. It hit him flat on the very well armored nose of his Stuka. He had fired all six exostars and the 20-tube launcher with two quick pulls of the trigger. The heat had hit him like a sun exploding in his face. It would have made him cook in his own juices, but for his cooling vest and his updated heatsinks spread out around his assault class fighter. He was still too hot to fire that much again, as the two groups passed. This time he "only" fired three of the exostars. He was still hot, but not too hot to affect his fire control or other sensitive systems of his craft… that much.

David's first strike was impressive. All six of the large bores struck, and then eighteen long range missiles struck the same Transgressor as the slower weapons followed the speed of light ones. The speed of light energy blast started hitting on the nose of the Transgressor and they worked back towards the high thin tail of the craft. The hammer blows blew massive holes into the thick armored skin, of the 75ton fighter. Most of the time the armor kept the assault out of the sensitive parts of the craft, and other times something breakable was touched by the energy blast. The slower solid fueled rockets came next and eighteen of them spread their damage over the nose and left and right wings. The missiles not only had the warhead they were packing to do damage to the Transgressor. The speed they had generated in flight and the speed that the enemy craft had generated, also helped the missiles do some damage to the hull.

A shower of armor fragments was blown off and they fell behind the on rushing enemy fighter. Over half of the armor on the nose and body was gone within a few eye blinks, and they were still closing toward each other. A smarter pilot might have broken off contact to assess his craft's health, before continuing combat with an enemy that out massed you by a quarter. This pilot did not, he just pushed to go after the target they had been paid to take out. He had taken everything that the Stuka could dish out. To be packing that much firepower, the Stuka had to be almost dead of heat stroke or have only very thin armor. Those were two things that the TR-13's pilot thought that he could exploit and win the battle.

As the weapons on both ships cycled to recharge, they closed on each other. Each pilot moved their craft to make it a harder target for any additional fire that might be coming their way. The term was called "helping to generate a miss." They were just about to pass each other, and David's craft was hit again. His system was telling him about the hits. But it was a single medium laser hit, that had his undivided attention for a few seconds. It had hit and damaged his craft, but thankfully it did not punch all the way through the hardened armored glass of his cockpit. His cockpit had a nice chunk taken out by the laser, but it was only a mild distraction. It made David madder then unnerved at the close call with death.

He kept his head, thankful for the new triple layering now required by the SLDF Navy for new spacesuits of all kinds. The first or inner layer was the full cooling suit that dated back to the time just before the fall of the Star League. Then you had a full Colonial spec spacesuit, and the outer covering was the normal spacesuit that Clan Aero Pilots wore for the last few hundred years. The new middle layer was added to protect in case the outer suit was breached. This new layer had helped save numerous lives after it had been added.

At the last second, before they passed each other in a blur, David fired. It was too close for the lower heat but very powerful and ammunition limited 20 tubed missile launchers to add its firepower. David pulled his second trigger and fired "only" three large lasers. The heatsinks had been able to vent most, but not all of the heat from his massive alpha strike. He just fired what would keep his craft "only a little warm", but not enough to be damaging to his electronic support equipment. This fire was a lot more than the targeted craft had expected.

Only two of the exostars hit, but again it was the nose and main body that took the hits. Now that the two craft were separated, David took time to try to workout first his status. That turned out to be okay and combat ready. Then he looked for his target or another target that was worth his attention. He found it first on radar and it was not looking good, for the Transgressor. It seemed it was out of the fight, for now. The radar said that it was tumbling in space, and maybe in an out of control situation or worse.

Now David hit the play back button on one screen, so he could try to work out the damage or threat it might be later in the battle. The replay showed that one of the big bore laser hits had struck the cockpit square on. That craft was dead, and David was thinking that they might be able to recover it. That was when nature stepped in and took the future out of his hands.

The Transgressor was 25 tons lighter, than the Stuka. It was only a little faster than the Sled, but it could not take the amount of damage the larger fighter could have taken. As the hits had come in, the armor had cracked more and more. Through these cracks, the laser energy had been able to touch more and more of the fragile parts under that hard-outer shell. The enemy craft had taken damage to heatsinks, avionics, life support, and its engine had been damaged twice. All before the second round of laser firing had taken place. The lighter craft was done. It was just that the pilot of the Transgressor did not know it yet. Shock is your bodies way of saying you really don't want to remember what was about to happen.

The second strike of laser fire had, in hindsight, not been necessary. The one laser blast had burned right through the damaged cockpit and turned the pilot to ash, suit and all. The second laser blast had punched into the massive power plant and caused a fuel line to be kinked by a fuel pump. Less than one minute, after the last strike the 75ton craft blew itself apart. It went from a damage mass into bits no bigger than a young boy's fist, in a blink of an eye.

David was not the squadron commander. He was more of just a heavy gun. Now that his assigned target was down. He needed to see what other threats were around his local space. He flipped his craft over, so that his nose and its heavy weapons were pointed at the tails of the fleeing enemy craft. They were out of range of any weapon, all but maybe clan made Extended Range Large Laser, Long Ranged PPC or Gauss Rifles. All of those weapons were not allowed this close to the Inner Sphere, so he would never find out if he could have scored a hit. He could count that all of his unit was still in the fight, and that was not true of the enemy formation. He noticed that the enemy flights were short the two Samurais' along with the Transgressor, that David had taken down.

When they had launched the plan had been to take out both heavy hitters, the two suspected TR-13's. Unlike the other Clans. The Star League in Exile had no plan to fight one on one. Not if they didn't have to, so the other Transgressor would have been dog meat. The plan had changed, when Jules told them that they needed to buy time for the White Rabbit. That meant taking out the fastest of the enemy fighters first, the two 50ton SL-25's. David still had been given one of the Transgressors to remove from the battlespace.

It looked like damage had been done to one of the Corsairs, and the last of the Transgressors. That was not the only damage, his systems were telling him about. One of the Ironsides was not acting right, and just as he was about to start putting power to his engines and work on catching up to his wingmen. His radio broke silence in his ear. One part of his mind knew that he was about to hear bad news. Each of their craft had suicide charges outfitted, but that did not mean he was eager to use it or have one of his unit need to use theirs.

"Iron 3, this is Iron 1. I can see the damage to your engine. Fall back to the Sled. Sled this is Iron 1. I want you to try to work over the small assault ships. If you can take a few of them out. Even if they make it to the White Rabbit, if you can pop one or force them to delay. it will help the grunts on the security teams. Do you copy?"

David touched his microphone button twice, and then used his controls to flip his craft again to point it the way he had come. He only had to turn his head to the side a little, to see that Ironsides Three was facing the same way. He knew that Dede was not a happy camper, right about then. The odds were not with the lance of damaged fighters. They were outnumbered two to one in craft, but both fighters only massed a total of 165 tons. While each of the closing small craft each massed 150 tons, and there were four of them. Long odds, no matter how you looked at it.

David had to rely on his computers to plot out an intercept course on his new targets. He had worked out one, and it was not good. The one the computer came up with, was even less good. They were going to have to flip again and fire up their engines to full power. This would let them sideslip, as they built up speed on a totally new vector. The attacking small craft had a top speed that was about equal to the Stuka, and they were only a little slower than the now damage Ironsides. If they could catch the Dragonstars out of mutual supporting position. The heavy firepower of the fighters might let them nibble on them.

Robert watched his fighters sideslip up on the powerful radar mounted on the aft of the Blockade Runner. The bridge crew also saw the four Ironsides flying up the tail pipes of the attacking fighters, but it was a stern chase. The advantage was that the two lances of Ironsides had a pair of long shooters on each craft. With the faster enemy fighters now dead, it was going to be an even longer chase to reach the now fleeing Blockade Runner. The second Transgressor had been the first to fall to the closing Ironsides, but it had taken out one of the Ironsides before it had died in the cold of deep space.

The last two enemy fighters, the lance of Corsairs, were getting ready to make an attack run against the engines of the Blockade Runner. It would seem that the attackers did not realize they were not going after a merchant ship, but a Blockade Runner. It was as close to being a wolf in sheep's clothing as could be. When the enemy fighters were in the right spot, and still out of range of their weapons. The captain of the White Rabbit flipped his ship, and now all of that recent training with the fighters was going to pay off. The massive craft flipped a lot faster, than any dropship had the right to being able to move.

Instead of facing two medium sized lasers mounted in the thin armored covered aft. The attacking fighters were facing two LRM 20s in the nose and a set of two LRM 20s and a larger bore laser mounted on the left and right sides of the craft. That firepower when combined with the three remaining 65ton Ironsides coming up behind them? This turned the two fighters into expanding balls of short-lived fire, when the weapons fire from the two different directions hit their targets. Just like that, the attacking squadron was now no longer an issue for anything but a navigation hazard.

The mood on the dropship's bridge rose and then fell as the data came in from the rest of the local space. The team of David and Dede were only able to take out one of the small craft and damage another of the Dragonstars. Before they were out of play on Group Two, now with engine damage to both fighters. The SLDF just lost one third of its firepower for the next part of the battle.

 **Notes:**

 **Fighters in this battle**. I used the Mercenaries Tables to come up with the attack force. I just picked a heavier battle line.

 **Shift change at more than 1.5gs**? I have pulled 6 Gs at Huntsville, once. It…sucked. Trying walking around with half of your body weight on your back…for a dozen hours. That is 1.5. It goes downhill from there.

 **ComStar's ROM**. Right now, it is not Copeland vs ComStar. It is Copeland vs ROM. In some ways this is worse than just facing ComStar.

 **Fighter battle**. I was trying a different way to handle this battle and getting it into a readable forum. Still not happy with it, and I will see how it finally turns out.


	31. Chapter 31 1 Mar 3048 Dragonstar battle

**Chapter 31**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **1 Mar 3048 Dragonstar battle**

 **Xanthe III on the way to Lopez.**

David was trying to line up on the targets, when they broke apart like a flower in the wind. Each of the four small craft was putting distance between each of themselves in what had to be an often-practiced maneuver. It was a risky move by their commander. Now each of the small craft was out of mutually supporting position, of their sisters. It also meant that the two fighters could only take out one craft at a time, as the rest of them closed in on the White Rabbit. David had finally been able to get a shot at the wildly moving small craft, but the pilot of the small craft was doing his level best not to give him a clear shot.

He had been able to score hits on the 150ton craft, but for the longest time. He could not convert any of the strikes to solid hits, which would stop the craft. The damage he was causing was all over the place, and not concentrated. He had hit it a few times on the aft, the right side and left side. He had even hit the nose of the craft, when the pilot had flipped the craft and unloaded the nose bays on him, when he got to close.

He had been able to reply to that attack with four large lasers and a larger number of long ranged missiles. David was quickly getting frustrated with the situation. He was about to risk another alfa strike and try to finish off the target. When his systems told him, that the last of the enemy fighters had been taken out by the White Rabbit and the rest of the Ironsides. This information made him smile. With the aero fighters gone, it was going to take longer for the assault craft to catch up to the fleeing dropship.

With a thin smile on his face. He fired his last ammunition for his LRM 20 and his wing mounted lasers. David had not aimed directly at the small craft. He thought that the pilot was going to do something, so he had aimed just off to one side of the enemy small craft. Just as David pulled the triggers, the small craft shifted course and flew right into the incoming fire from the Sled. This time the hits showed immediate results. Massive slabs of armor and other structure parts came flying off the target wherever the weapons manage to hit.

The engines on the Dragonstar went to maximum power, and then some. The engines were eating themselves in a spat of mechanical rage. Soon the thrust was not uniform, and the craft started spinning faster and faster along its main axis. Right in front of David's eyes. The 150ton craft quickly was spinning at a rate that was well over 5 Gs. And still it was spinning faster and faster, each passing second. David knew in his gut, that the crewmembers and passengers of the small craft were already dead. David now was free to look for his second target. His heart stopped. Two of the small craft had already attached themselves to the side of the ship, which was carrying the Convoy commander. He had been so focused on taking out the second craft of today's battle, that he had lost his situational awareness.

Dede was a very angry pilot. She and her wing man had targeted the second Transgressor. The reason for the anger? That was that not only had she not been able to take out the heavy fighter, but it had been able to hit her craft…..hard. She had been ordered to hang back and go after the larger and slower small craft class assault ships. She felt that the small craft were not "real" targets, like the other fighters were.

Still she had done as she had been ordered, even if she really didn't want to. The damage to her engine was not that bad. But she had a line of damage that went from just forward of the wing, and it went all the way down that right side of her Ironsides going into the underside to almost to the engine exhaust. She was faster than the Sled, but she was a lot slower than the rest of her wingmen. She was still having to mother her engine, to keep it functional. First going faster and then slowing down to keep her engine from going nova on her. It was not the best way to be in a firefight in the deep of space, and between a planet and a jump point.

The pilot of the craft she was targeting was just as good, as the one that David was trying to kill, and Dede was thinking that they might be facing some elite level crews. The Dragonstar's pilot was able to keep her from getting close enough to launch the avalanche of short-range weapons she carried to find and exploit the holes that her twin PPC's had been trying to make. She was getting good hits with her paired PPCs, but it was taking a long time to work through the thick armor the larger craft was wrapped in.

Dede was now so focused on her target. That she did not notice that another Ironsides had joined her in targeting the same damaged small craft. She only stopped firing when she saw the life pods start launching from the sides of the craft between weapons runs. She might have stopped firing, but the other Ironsides had not. In a blink of an eye it was an expanding ball of flames and flying metal, and she had a very front row seat to the fireball. When she rolled away and the flash blindness had started to abate. She could see the two other small craft as they attached to the side of the command ship.

Igarashi Miya was reading the incoming data of the battle going on above his head. He was getting the information from the two mercenary units involved. The Sundogs were not just some group of "pirates". They were an Elite level Aero Fighter unit, which also were devout followers of Blake's Word and from the world of Jardine. The Sundogs were working with the White Hand. They were an Elite level unit of small craft operators supported by their modified liner. The ground unit supporting him on this mission were only little better than pirates with Regular Star League grade military equipment, and only had a hand full of people that were veterans. Now the group in space? They were a different type of animal all together.

The White Hand were the best at boarding action outside of the atmosphere. They tended to go through boarding troops and targeted crews quickly. Even the command crews of their small craft were top shelf. Still Igarashi did not like what he was seeing on the screens of his command ship. He had not been that upset when the Sundogs lost their first fighter. The Sundogs were very good, but like 99.95 percent of the rest of the Inner Sphere units. It was not using any upgraded weapons on their six fighters.

ComStar had planned around the idea that this was going to change, in the near future. Soon they would be armed better than any house unit larger than a Battalion. There was only so much that the Factories could do, in such a short time. There was an upper limit to what ComStar had in storage and the rebuilding and slowly de-mothballing factories could make. Other units that were closer to the public side, had to have the right dressing for many reasons.

As Igarashi watched the line schematics on each of the fighters. He could see the mounting damage, and he bet that it was going to happen faster as there were fewer fighters to spread the damage around. As more and more reports came, and the damage kept rising, until the last of the Sundog's fighters were shot down. All that Igarashi could do was frown at the six red outlined fighter shapes on a 1.5m wide screen.

Igarashi was worried that even with the reputation of the Sundogs and the White Hands that they would pull back from the battle. He almost smiles when he sees that the carrier dropship had kept going towards the fleeing Blockade Runner. When the last two surviving Dragonstars attached themselves to the target dropship, he was now finally happy. Copeland's people had lost one fighter completely, and the others were showing signs of varying degrees of damage. ComStar had picked up on that Captain Copeland took the Trojan when they stopped at smaller planets some time ago. They still had the odd reports that the overall commander, would also take the Mule class dropship called the Lisbon Maru randomly when they made planet fall.

Igarashi wanted this Captain Copeland. He had a few people who like causing pain, which wanted to see him for some personal time. That thought made him smile more as time went on, and this distracted him. That distraction made him miss when the modified Monarch flipped and started to slow down. The Sundog's crewed Leopard was still burning towards the other Leopard class ship. The Sundog ship was going to provide cover, so that the boarding crew could do their job of taking over the dropship from its merchant crews.

"Why has the liner started slowing down?" The Head of ROM spoke aloud to the room filled with other ComStar people. Something was wrong. After so much had gone wrong, he was worried about the plan going sideways.

A very low-level systems operator manning the radio waited a few seconds, before speaking. "Sir? They are reporting that they are under attack."

Igarashi's head came up in a flash to look closer at the data. He voiced what his mind was trying to work out. "That's impossible!"

He had to look harder at the screens and count the green dots on it. One was missing and by the codes, it was the Stuka. " _How did that happen_?" The way it should have worked, is that all of Copeland's fighters should have attacked the enemy fighter carrier. That was what the books said about how it should be done.

Igarashi was not a large-scale military commander, but he had been to a ComStar school to tell him how it was done. He just was better at the spying, intimidation, and the manipulation business. He still remembered his old school lessens. He also had another skill. He could tell when it looked like things were going too far sideways to win, or for that matter live threw the event. That little voice was screaming in the back of his mind.

"Alert all ground teams. They are to leave the "right" evidence and start pulling back. We will need to be ready to lift off in a few hours." His own brain was surprised at the words as they fell out of his mouth. He still thought that he could "get" the ship called White Rabbit. He was thinking that he was NOT going to be able to get the Styx or the other ships that belonged to his company.

David was trying to close on the blips on his screen. The enemy Leopard was going to be his target. His six large bores would be able to work through the armor. The problem was that the 1,900ton ship was faster than his Stuka. Then the Captain of the Styx gave him a different target, while he was doing his best to get a line onto the other enemy carrier. David did some math, and let an evil smile cross his face.

 _"_ _This was going to be perfect! It's not a real military dropship, but it did launch all of those assault craft. That makes you a carrier in my logbook, buddy."_ He quickly flipped his craft and fired his engines for three full minutes at full power, and then he shut them off. He gave a thanks to the Colonials gods that his engines had not gone nova. Soon he became just another moving rock in this part of space. He was letting his target come towards him as he hides in space using only passive systems and receiving transmitted data coming from the larger ships.

David watched the target come towards him, on his passive systems. He was comparing what he was "seeing" to the data that was coming threw his systems. The target was 169 meters long and massed around 5,000 tons. It looked like a flat arrow or leaf pointed spear head. It could make only about half the thrust of what the lighter Leopard could do until its fuel tanks ran dry. It just had not been designed as a warship. It had started out as something that should stay far from the warfront as it could get. David was thinking that maybe the craft's captain should have remembered what the craft had been first designed for, and a carrier was not it.

David had no idea where this one had been built, but sometime in his past life it had undergone a radical change. It had been modified, a lot and by people who had some skill in making those modifications to the spaceframe. The Monarch design was a space going passenger liner, but now this one had been modified with what looked like six small craft bays. The six bays were split evenly down both sides of the thicker spine of the dropships with exits over the leaf shaped wings. David could not tell much more, if any other modifications had been done to the old girl.

As the ranged dropped. David had to fire his engines, or he was going to miss the dropship all together. Having a massive fusion flame fire off, were one had not been before? Now that was a little attention grabbing, even if you were not looking for it. The White Hand had been taking over dropships and jumpships for a few decades now. They knew the odds, and they knew when it was time to run. Having a 100ton fighter "show" up almost in weapons range of there civilian skinned liner. Might have been on the top of that list of odds changing events.

They started screaming for help and flipped the liner, so that it could start slowing down. They were to have done a high-speed burn to the jump point. The Stuka changed those plans. They knew that they had landed two small craft on the target, and now a full platoon would soon be capturing the dropship. They would take the bridge and start moving the newly captured dropship toward their jumpship, and the massive payday they had been promised. Without her assault craft, she had little to nothing to add to this fight. The liner could not add anything to help with capture, so it seemed like this was a good time to put some space between it and any firefight.

David came charging in from above the dropship. This had the advantage of giving him a huge target to hit with his weapons. The downside? It was that it gave him a lot of area for his firepower to be split across. The Monarch had an armor layout not much different than the 60 tons Stingray class fighter. That was not going to stand up long against a 100ton fighter, much less one that had just been under the upgrade scalpel. What would buy them some time? It was that David's big hitter and the one weapon, that was his longest ranged weapon was out of ammunition.

David fired all of his forward mounted lasers and he was able to hit with them all. At this range his weapons fire was spread over the broad flat top of the craft, instead of hitting as one fist of angry energy waves. The larger bore lasers hit the nose, left and right wings. The most telling hit was the last one of the six pack. The single hit blasted almost all the way into the massive exhaust bell of the aft mounted engine. He was below the craft coasting away on a cold engine and glowing on any infrared detector that was looking his way, a few eye blinks later. David did not want to give any enemy gunners a nicer brighter target, and he waited for a few seconds before firing off his powerful GM 300 power plant.

No weapons fire followed David, as he pulled away from his attack run on the small craft carrier. He was watching and when no weapons fire followed him. He gave an evil smile, some people might not like attacking a defenseless liner. Not David. They had launched an attack on the ship that was carrying the Convoy commander. They had done it from this very ship. You should not fight a battle if you did not have a way to defend yourself with, after you launched your attack.

David flipped his craft and slowed down, and then started to chase the liner down for another gun run. As soon as the small craft carrier was in anything like real weapons range. David would start firing his large lasers. He was over thrusting his engines as often has he dared. He did not want to overheat, so he was for now "only" firing two or three of his nose mounted weapons and riding the heat bubble. Most of his laser bolts missed, but as the minutes wore on more and more strikes were made all over the converted passenger liner. When the range was lower? He would add one or two more weapons to his trigger pulls.

20,000 miles from the Invader class jumpship. The White Hand started to shed life pods and lifeboats. It did not take long for all 30 of the emergency craft, to be blasted away from the stricken vessel. This is the point that separated David and the Star League in Exile, from the run of the mill pirates or even some house units. He did not fire into the unarmored and unarmed life preserving craft as they came off of the helpless ship. They would slowly make their way to the nearest jump point, their dumb computers working out that it was the best place for the pods to be recovered. He was betting that all thirty of those craft did not have personnel on it, or if they did? There were very few heartbeats on each one.

David would not make an attack run against the over 500meter long jumpship. That was because setting only about 100km's from the interstellar craft, was a massive Overlord class dropship. It was just sitting in a covering position, which was just perfect for blocking any attack against the jumpship. David flipped his craft around and slowed until he was standing still, relative to the jumpship and over watching the 9,000ton war craft. It did not take long for David to start to wonder, what was going on back on the White Rabbit. They had been off the air, with all orders coming from the Styx. So far, they had not been doing a lot of chatting on different topics.

On the White Rabbit. The bridge crew was tracking everything going on around them. They were getting closer and closer to the help offered by the on-rushing Hobgoblin. As each of the enemy craft was destroyed or taken out of play. And now the two small craft that David and Dede had pulled out of the main area of the battle space, the crew started to have hope. Robert was watching the two closing assault ships, when they were committed. Robert put the hat on of the Commander of the convoy.

"Captain, I think it's time to cut the thrust and let our people get ready for some unwanted guest." Cutting the thrust would cut the time down on when the enemy craft could close the distance, but by now that was a moot point.

The Captain of the dropship thought about it for a long second. He was thinking that it would be better to keep pushing as hard as they could to the jump point. After a second, he could do the math in his head. He could keep running, and then the attacking craft would still be able to attach to his ship before they reached the jump point. Then his crews would only have what they now had at hand to defend themselves and the ship with. Or he could cut power now. That would give his people a chance to blunt the attack and be more ready for combat.

The dropship captain chose to cut his engine power. He knew it was the better move, even if he still thought they should just keep running. The Captain gave the order and thrust went from 2.5g to "only" 1.22. Everyone was warned when this was going to happen, and why. As soon as the power was cut down. Everyone went around getting weapons, additional power packs, loaded magazines, and putting body armor on. They had 15 minutes before the two trailing craft were close.

That was when the Captain of the dropship flipped his ship and cut the power all the way off. The heavy weapons in the nose of the craft started firing as fast as they could reload or recharge. It was not much, but between it and a few attack runs by the fighters. It was a pair of now very damaged Dragonstars, that were able to attach to the dropship's sides. The crews on those small craft would have to take this ship, or they were not going to be going anywhere.

The two Dragonstars were on different sides of the ship. This was done to spread out any target's crewmembers that might resist this soon to start incursion. It was felt that the White Hands had been short boarding crews. ComStar, or more to the point ROM had added two Level IIs of Tornado PA(L)s to the mission. That was why these two craft were the one's "chosen" to continue the attack, and the other two had drawn away the attacking fighters. They still had a full load of combat troops, but they did not have any "big guns". That left the last 3 squads of marines on the White Hand, when it had come apart.

The first six people threw the hatch from each of the small craft would be those suits of high-tech protection. Each ship should have been able to force almost 60 troopers threw the two hatches they breached into the dropship. Battle damage had cut that number down, to some degree. Even when every person who could carry a weapon was marked to assault into the White Rabbit. Still they had fewer than that optimal number. The only attacking units at full strength. They were the two six men teams in armor that had protected them from combat damage, that had leaked threw the assault crafts armored skin.

The ROM teams were very happy to get out of the tin cans of the Dragonstars. At least now, they can have some effect on the world instead of just sitting and taking it on the head like they had been doing. It felt like they had been abused for days now. They had some mad to take out, so it was with relish that they were going to be the first ones onto the enemy ship. Facing them were only two full time squads of defenders. They were very large people, who also were very angry. And they were waiting for the attackers over gun sights.

Jenifer was one of the tallest women that most Inner Sphere people had seen in person. She was not just tall. She was also called "door wide" and she had the normal temperament of a bear with a tooth ache. That was on her best days. Today was not even close to her calling it a good day, for her. She was also very sore as she took up a defensive position. She had over done it during a combat training event, just before they had entered this system and she had not fully recovered.

With the heavy thrusting of the dropship? She had been restricted to her bed, by doctors' orders when word was passed that they were going to 1.5g of thrust. That was more like handcuffing a lion to a hospital bed, than a crewman. Being forced to be in bed while she watched the rest of the crew slowly moving around had not been a salve for her ego. Seeing smaller and less muscular crewmembers not seeming to be bothered by the heavy G loading they were under, made her feel useless. Every time one of them walked by her bed, she would just fume more and more.

Now she was up and moving around the ship again. She had that strong feeling that she not only wanted to break something. She needed to break somethings, and the sooner the better for her people or anyone else around her. Some of it must have shown on her face, because none of the "normal" ship's crew came within sight much less arms reach of the large, wide and very angry woman packing enough weapons to start a war.

She was set up in a defense position looking right at the hatch, which the small craft had locked onto about 90 seconds ago. She had on a smile that a shark would have loved to have been able to emulate. The hatch wheel started to spin, and the hatch started to open. Unlike the last attack. They did not rush into the narrow metal access ways. It would seem that someone might have read about the last people who had made that play against this ship.

Jenifer "call me Jen and I will break your knees" eyes went wide. It was not a person in body armor looking out of the connecting hatch. Jenifer had to fight to keep her voice level and soft. The head was looking around seemingly to make sure the coast was clear. "Okay people Hatch 5J is opening. They are scouting this time and not bum rushing, but the first person is wearing something that kind of looks like a Nighthawk suit. I am arming the traps, including the EMP. Everyone keep a heads up when it blows!"

She let go of the transmit button, then turned off all her non-hardened electronic equipment with a few simple finger movements that were very well practiced. _"Well you wanted to break something, and you were worried that they would not put up a real fight after attaching to the hull. Looks like you do not have to worry about that now."_

As Jenifer watched from her hiding spot off to one side of the corridor. The Nighthawk like suit called a Tornado suit, stepped fully into the ships access way. The Tornado suit, just like the Nighthawk it was based on, did not have a built-in weapon system. It was fitted with armored gloves, which allowed the wearer to carry heavier weapons for a longer amount of time than a nonsuited trooper could. It also would protect the trooper wearing it from most rifle sized rounds, but not heavy weapons fire and a few other hazards that they might bump into. The first suit entered the access way, and then took three steps towards Jenifer. It was followed by two more suited personnel that looked to be planning on taking the other two access ways from the hatch.

On an external pick-up mic. Jenifer could hear voices yelling at the suits to move faster. It seemed that those voices were coming from deeper within the airlock. The rest of the team seemed to think that faster was better.

Jenifer was still smiling as the suit took another step towards her. The metal foot stepped forward, but the suit operator did not notice a little mechanical switch that the foot depressed as the deck took his weight. The simple switch opened up a power line overhead. At the speed of light, a bolt of raw power, which could fry a Cylon Centurion, found the shortest route to ground. The energy bolt "jumped" from the open port overhead, to the box like head. Then it went through the machine and out the right foot of the 400 kg Krupp made suit. The end point was a catch plate, which took the energy bolt and feeds it back into the ships power grid. One thing that a dropship had, was an abundance of high voltage.

The intruder shook as the power went through the suit and the organics that controlled it. Circuit breakers built into the suit popped to protect the sensitive electronics, but that didn't help the human heart or brain incased in the conductive metal. By the time the power surge had stopped. The human brain was only so much cooked meat, and it was dead as any hamburger coming off a grill in your local greasy spoon.

The sound and flash of the blast of electricity stopped everyone in their path. There were now four suits in the access way, but one was now falling face forward to the metal deck, like a stone statue. Before the suit had completely fallen to the dropship's deck. A second modification built into the Blockade Runner activated. This time the modification was triggered by Jennifer in her hide site. It was a very focused EMP mine and it detonated.

The EMP was an area limited mine, which would only affect the area in the access ways on this deck. The other edge of the zone of effect was from Jenifer's location going all the way to the open hatch. Now all four enemy battle suits were out of commission. The Star League in Exile had worked with and trained against the Nighthawk suits for a few centuries, and now they had a lot of experience fighting the Cylons. So, they knew how to fight against things like power armor. They had more than a few tricks in their playbook to counter battle armor. They knew that the Clan used even heavier combat suits, and the weapons and tactics had been first worked out to counter them.

When the EMP mine went off, it did not give a flash or blast of noise to announce what had just happened. It was just a hidden attack, and then an effect on the battlefield. When the invisible wave of energy swept over the targeted area. It was picked up on the systems of the people still on the other side of the hatch, it was a very energetic event. As soon as the energy wave passed, and it was "only" moving at the speed of light. The rest of the team still on the small craft rushed into the metal access ways like a human tidal wave. The last two suits were faster of the bunch.

Jennifer had dropped prone on the deck after hitting the button for the mine, and she pulled the Blazer rifle closer into her armored covered shoulder. The two small craft had spread out all of the defenders, but the "hidden" two squads were going to take a lot of the attackers by surprise. Jennifer pulled the trigger and put a full power blast into the Nighthawk like armor dead center in the chest. It fell to the ground, before it could get up to anything like full speed.

The falling PA(L) suit tripped up and delayed the follow on and final armored suit in this group. This gave Jennifer time to be able to fire a second full power shot into the attackers. The second suit was her target and it took the twin laser blasts at the groin level of the two-legged weapons system. It was now out of the fight.

The rushing people behind the heavy body armor surged forward. Jennifer knew that the Blazer was not going to recharge in time to fire again, so she did not even try. She reached forward to the waiting Colonial automatic battle rifle. That was when she was struck by the first three rounds. They had come from a Federal Rifle and hit her on the left shoulder pad armor like a hammer.

The heavy cored round punched through the armored pad and into Jennifer's body, only stopping after breaking the shoulder blade to blead off the last of the energy. Jennifer was still able to fire a full magazine down the narrow access way. It did not stop the human wave attack. She would end up shot four times, in the back. She was even stabbed with a vibro bayonet in her center back. It would just miss her spine. There was so much blood on the deck, that the follow-on enemy borders just left her unmoving body in its firing position.

The man with no name slowly made his way down the access way. The deck plans downloaded into his Tornado suit said this way was to the main cargo bay. He was, as far as he knew the last of the ROM team, which had been seconded to the White Hands to add some firepower to their attack. He knew why this ship had been attacked. He had seen a lot of the reports on this target. He had paid close attention to the report about the failed light infantry assault of almost a platoon sized unit of criminals.

When he and his team had first exited their Dragonstar. They had walked right into the same trap that had taken out the other team of battle armor, just without the EMP mine. The only reason he was still alive? It was that he had been the last person out of the hatch, and that the point man had been farther ahead of the rest of the team when they rushed the defenders. Only a dozen of his team had made it past the sole defensive point near the hatch.

As his people advanced, he could hear weapons fire behind them. He had never stopped to look, but he felt that the numbers of "his" people were dropping due to fire from this demon mad crew. That should not have been happening. The members of his team had been falling one after the other, and they were still on the same deck that the transport had attached to. Even then, he had not been able to make it this far without heavy damage to his armor. The front and back of his suit looked like someone had fired shotgun blast after massive shotgun blast into it from five meters.

None of his suit's pick-ups told him anything, but that he was alone. Well that and that the hatch in front of him, should lead him to an access way to the bridge and control center of the vessel. He was determined by Blake's beard. That he was going to reach that target and kill anyone there, or anyone that got in his way to get to that location. When he reached the hatch, he had to spin the wheel to get the hatch to unlock on manual and give it a hard push to start it to swing open.

As the hatch moves away from him. He stuck his back to the side of the access way, so that any incoming fire would sail down the corridor without hitting him. Not doing this? It had cost him his last wing man, when what must have been a dozen laser blast had come their way after opening a closed hatch way. A mini grenade had been an effective reply to those laser burst, and they had taken the room. When this hatch was fully opened, and no weapons fire had come his way. He slowly entered the half empty cargo bay. He had not reached the ripe old age of 27 in ROM without being a little careful, when he needed to be.

Mike was sitting in his Power Loader mech. He was a tech and a fully qualified mech warrior, not some grunt. He knew that he would have been less than useless in the battle of the access ways of the ship. He had reported to the cargo bay as soon as the engines had reduced power. The Bridge knew where he was going and that he would be powering up his Fuel Cell engine power loader. It had no weapons and almost nothing for armor, but it was a weapon that he knew how to use very well.

He closed and dogged all of the hatches to the cargo bay, just as the engines fired up to over 1G of thrust. He contacted the bridge with what he had done, and what he was planning on. He was not told, not to do it. He took it as it was okay, to stick with his "plan". He moved his Power Loader to one side of the large open area, which was the cargo bay. The hatch that was the nearest to him, was the most likely way that the attackers would try to access this area. All he could do was wait to find out if he was right or not.

Mike pulled out a sheet of paper and made notes, as information came over the radio on the possible location of the enemy. He put the pen and paper away, when he saw the hatch wheel start to slowly spin. Mike almost moved when the hatch started to open, but something stopped him, before he let his muscles move more than a few millimeters. The hatch was opening very slowly under manual control, and without making any noise. Whoever was on the other side, was not going to rush into him. Mike waited, and when he saw a shadow start to move, he was ready. The super quiet fuel cell powered mech's arm shifted a little in one dimension. Mike was making sure that he moved as slowly as he could, but still not be jerky.

The ComStar made suit cleared the hatch, and the operator started scanning the area around him. He could see items and equipment all over the area, but he did not pick up on the sound coming from above his head. The suits external microphone had been damaged in the battle already, and he did not know that it had finally decided that it did not want to work anymore. It was an oversite, which he would not live to understand. Or maybe he would? It can take a long time to die. When you were screaming? It makes it seem like time has stopped, as you scream yourself horse.

A few meters over the hatch lip, a forked ended and off yellow mech arm started falling toward the deck floor. The Mech's arm from shoulder to the end of the lifting forks massed just under ten tons, without carrying anything. The White Rabbit was still under power and trying to make it to the "safety" of the jumpship at the jump point. The almost nine tons of metal was falling faster under the 1.2Gs that the massive dropship engines were pushing. The falling arm hit the newer built knockoff Nighthawk suit, just behind the "head". The falling arm pushed the top half of the heavy suit slightly forward as it came down. If the ROM agent had been half a step farther into the cargo bay? He might have "only" gotten off with more damage to his suit, and a very bad headache. It would have been doubtful that the suit would have been operational, but it would have been better for the ROM agent inside the metal can of a suit.

That was not the case now. The hips and legs of the man and suit could not be pushed out of the way fast enough. The massive weight started crushing the expensive suit. When the heavy lifting arm stopped moving, it was almost touching the metal ship's deck. What was stopping the arm from reaching the deck, was a lot thinner set of metal covered legs. The suit was not moving, and a growing area of red liquid was spreading out away from the site of the collision.

Mike looked out of his covered and thinly armored cockpit, at the mess below him. What he could not see, was that the falling mass had crushed the human pelvis and all the bones below it into jelly. The suit's pilot was screaming as loud as he could, but no one could hear him or care if they did. In three minutes, he would be dead due to the open veins and arteries below his belt line. The crew would spend weeks cleaning up the mess. Every time the ship would go to zero g, a few flakes of dried blood would be found floating in this cargo bay.

Mike had time to get back in position, when bullets and laser blast started coming out of the hatch. The suit had only thought he was alone. The last of the boarders on this level had only been delayed, by the last ambush. They had not seen what had happened to the PA(L) that had been running point for them. They could only see it lying on the deck in the open hatch way. Their responses to the image, was to fire out the hatch to push anyone back that had attacked one of them.

When the three people in medium body armor, and riot shields exited the hatch? They were greeted with a hip high leg stomp delivered by Mike and his loadermech. More blood was now on the deck. Soon it would be covering the whole deck from hatch to hatch and metal wall to metal wall and everywhere in between. It would be a painful and tedious procedure to clean it all up to the satisfaction of the Cargo Master and the senior ship's enlisted member. He would not be very happy with the one time failed out mech warrior. The word crunchy was semiofficially band in the ships mess hall for that time forward.

It would take about another ten minutes for it to be worked out that the boarding action was done, and it had failed. The Cargo Master looked up from his screens. He was too old and not trained for this type of fighting to be of any use. If they had breached the bridge? He would have been able to put his sidearm to good use, but he had other duties that better fit his skills. Like watching all of the new security cameras and microphones

"Sir! Internal security is not picking up any more weapons fire. Do we want to start trying to sweep towards the compromised hatches?" This had been directed to the Dropships captain, and not the convoy commander sitting to his right side.

The Captain of the White Rabbit was looking at the displays, and he agreed with his cargo master. "Yes. Please contact all teams. Have them start sweeping. Make sure they know not to shoot our own people, or I will make them regret it." Blue on Blue was not uncommon, and it was more than just an embarrassment when it happened under your command.

It was slow going and there were many close calls, but there were not any reported cases of Blue on Blue, once the clearing of the dropship had started. The counter clearing started in the Cargo bay right at Mikes Power Loaders mechs feet. The battle armor suit was the center of attention, and it took some effort to get everyone focus on the upcoming task. It took some foot to ass, to get into some of them that this was not over yet.

The clearing team was a mix of what was left of the two infantry squads, and secondary security personnel. They even were augmented with barely weapons trained crewmembers of the dropship to help. They had to go foot by foot, down all of the access ways of the dropship. They would find wounded, both theirs and the enemies every few meters of corridor that they cleared. They also found dead bodies from both sides of the battle. They cleared all the way to the small craft attached to the outer hull. They were both completely empty, all the crews had joined in on the assault and had chosen their own fates.

Robert was still seated in his command chair taking in all of the information as it was coming in, but he was not hovering over people on the bridge. That was not his job or place. Still it was killing him being on the side lines, but he was not going to get in the way of the Dropship's Captain. When he felt the time was right, he enters the picture.

"Okay Captain, what have we got? Would it give us an advantage, if we had the Lisbon Maru start coming out this way?"

The Captain of the Blockade Runner was thinking about what was going on, and what the Convoy commander had asked him. With a nod more to himself than to anyone on the bridge. He was ready to address the Commander.

"Sir, we have six dead, a dozen hurt or wounded to a number of different degrees. We will need some help soon, or we are going to lose some of them. We have captured eight pirates, all of them are wounded, but alive for now. The attached Dragonstars are empty, and I want to cut them off my hull. They are reported to be pretty badly shot up, with many dead bodies on board. It would seem that our fighters took a bigger bite out of them, than we first thought."

There was a slight tone of disbelief in his words about the effectiveness of the fighters. He had expected Navy trained pilots to have cleaned the skies of enemy and pirate craft with little problem. He had been deeply shaken that his people had not done so against only the technology that they had seen on those space craft.

The Captain looked at a few different screens, as he checked a few more details. "We are space worthy and my crew can do their jobs. We will need some downtime to fix all the damage caused by the weapons fire, but nothing looks that bad from up here. If we don't get some of it taken care of quickly? That could change amazingly fast. We can make the jump point, if the Hobgoblin can take care of that other Leo or at least keep it off of us the rest of the way. I don't think that the Overlord is interested in coming for us. But as of right now? I don't know if we could even handle the six pack they can carry. Even if they were all kits in light fighters." The Captain was referring to the six aero fighters an Overlord class dropship could carry as designed.

 **Notes** :

 **ComStar crew skills in the battles so far**. The Dragonstars, fighters, and marines were all Elite. All of Copeland crews are Vet rated.


	32. Chapter 32 1 Mar 3048 Leo vs Leo

**Chapter 32**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **1 Mar 3048 Leo vs Leo**

 **Xanthe III on the way to Lopez.**

The clearing of the boarders from the corridors of the White Rabbit had ended another chapter of the battle, but it was not the only battle going on in this star system. The last part of the overall battle was playing out in the deep cold and dark of space. It was far away from any planet or other natural space object. Battles in locations like this had not been seen that often in the Inner Sphere. At least not after the middle of the 2nd SW.

The enemy Leopard had pulled out all the stops, when it looked like at least one of the boarding ships would make it to the small cargo ship. It quickly had left the modified space passenger liner behind, like it was standing still. It kept going at maximum thrust when the last of the fighters that the Carrier had carried and was its long-ranged attack force, had died. The loss of those fighters did not mean that the dropship, did not have its own teeth. It was why this class of ship was thought of as the perfect raider around all corners of human space before and after the 2nd Succession War.

The enemy dropship passed the target Blockade Runner and moved to intercept its near sister. It needed to buy time for the boarding crews, to do their jobs and take control of the cargo ship. Now that it was where it needed to be, and she blocked the other ship. The pirate leopard cut the power back just to keep the distance the same between it and the contested dropship. It also means that it was getting closer to the jump point every second.

Before the enemy dropship could engage the Hobgoblin. It first was attacked by the three remaining Ironsides fighters. The three ex Star League fighters fought as one craft and tried to focus the damage they could put against the target on one location. Six PPCs could make even a dropship like the Leopard take any attack very seriously. It was during the second mass attack by the three fighters, that the SLiE were surprised. Right up until then, the SLiE thought that they had the technical edge in this battle.

The three fighters had pulled out of the attack and overflew the nose of the fighter carrier. The formation had loosened up, and the weaving had stopped. Now that they were out of range of the dropship, it was a waste of time and fuel to keep doing such maneuvers. That was when Gwen took two PPC blast to her engines and she died before she knew that she was going to die.

This unit had been in the Draconis Combine not too long ago. The leader of the whole Draconis Combine might still have the "Death to Mercenary" command in public, but other leaders and warlords knew that they needed them. The attacking unit commander had been able to get the local Warlord that had hired them, to "give" them some of the "new" Star League grade extended range Particle Projection Cannons. It had been part of a larger plan put into place by ROM, but it would now be used to good effect on this mission. The other two weapons were on their way back to a testing facility. ROM wanted to see it they could be tracked back to equipment "traded" to the Combine before the 3039 war, or if they were connected to the data coming out of the Helm's core.

Two of the 7ton weapons had been installed in the nose of the dropship. They had replaced the older style PPCs, which had been there only four months before. This generation of ER PPC did not hit any harder than the older weapons, but they reached out further to touch a target. To get that range? They were very hot weapons, and this ship had not been able to get an upgraded heat control system to handle the additional heat. That was part of this "contract". ComStar was going to update everything on the ship up to Star League levels in every way possible. It was to be the rewards for years of faithful service to that interstellar corporation. It also would be a test for an upcoming design to be fielded to the Com Guards. The crew was firing these new weapons as fast as they could recharge, along with every other weapon the dropship possessed. This tactic had worked with the older style of weapons, and why change when something worked.

The enemy dropship also did not have any upgraded targeting systems software or even much experience working with the weapons. That meant they were not the best, at putting them to the best use as designed. Soon the fighters and even the Hobgoblin were picking up the climbing heat level, that the overuse of those weapons was causing on the other carrier. The two remaining 65ton fighters were just flies compared to the 1,600ton ship. Still they did the job that was needing to be done. That was to keep the enemy dropship looking at them, and not looking at the White Rabbit. The job had only gotten a little more dangerous. Now that the surprise was exposed, it would be harder for the enemy craft to get any more major results.

When the Hobgoblin started getting close. The other leopard took up the challenge and the two dropships started trying to kill each other. The pair of dropships soon were acting more like two fighters, than almost 2,000ton carriers. While the whales were firing at each other? The flies were also able to attack, with some cover provided by the Hobgoblin. This was spreading out the weapons fire and rapidly overheating the enemy ship, as it tried to defend against two and sometimes three different sides at the same time. During the fight some telling blows were made on the engine by a massive wave of short ranged missiles launched from the wings of the two remaining fighters.

The dropship had thick armor and the paper cuts of the fighters were still cuts, which could draw some blood. On this attack run, the two fighters pushed into knife fighting range and fired a full spread of the fat short ranged missiles into the aft of the craft. The last run had damaged the dropship and took out the aft mounted large bore laser. With the loss of this long-ranged weapon, the two craft decided it was time to push in very close to the enemy vessel. The missiles were short ranged, but they packed a large warhead. One that was almost twice as heavy as what a longer ranged version did. The wave of explosions started at the very aft of the ship, and then it started to slowly move toward the nose of the ship as the fighter carried weapons went to work.

The missile strikes were felt by all of the 21-member crew of the dropship. It was just a set of rumblings, that is until something broke. The massive 400ton engines shook when a pair of missiles slipped through a hole in the armored skin. The sudden loss of efficiency was felt as the thrust dropped off by a very measurable amount. That was the first hint that something was wrong, and it was not the last indication that the Sundog was in trouble.

The ship started an un-commanded hard loop soon after, as one of the avionics bays started to burn in great white arcs of power. The damage control personnel would not get to the fire fast enough, because of damage done to the bay of nearby heatsinks. They were already spraying the area with hot and toxic fluid, which kills some of them in a few hours. This was the paper cut that would cause the horse to be lost. For the want of a horse, the battle was lost.

On the outside the dropship still looked normal, and maybe the sudden maneuver was to throw off incoming fire or to offer fresh armor plate to a threatened side. If they had been a "fighter" from the twenty or twenty-first century, a tell-tell sign of damage would have been smoke coming out of the engine. That would have been a sign to everyone, about the damage done to the drive system. After all it was that way in all of the entertainment shows that had air or space battles.

It would take a long few minutes for the sensors on the convoy ships to pick up on the change in the dropship's plasma drive plume. This would be marked as the beginning of the end for the enemy dropship in all the records made of this battle. As each weapon was fired by the hiding Star League Navy ships. More and more systems would start to first fail and then fry on the pirate ship. Between the loss of systems and loss of crew, the effectiveness of the enemy Leopard kept dropping.

The enemy warship would not go down easily, but it was going to lose. The Hobgoblin picked up a radio transmission, in the open, between the last two small craft and the enemy dropship as more and more of the dropship was falling off due to weapons fire. "They were doing a "full" attack, and they would know in twenty minutes if they "took" the ship."

No one on the Hobgoblin knew what this might mean, but they did know that the White Rabbit was on her own. They figured out that it was some kind of code, because nineteen and a half minutes later. The very badly damaged Leopard tried to disengage from the remaining fighters, and the Hobgoblin. It looked like a panic run for safety of the Overlord, and for the Invader class jumpship to take them all away from this battlefield.

The commander of the enemy dropship made his first big mistake, when he did that. It's very hard to pull away from an attacker mid battle. Most of the times you just die, with a sword or gunshot to the back. When it exposed its weaker armor and armed aft, the SLDF Navy went to town. The armor and weapons were already damaged from the attacks from what the Ironsides had done, when they had tried to take out the engines.

The Hobgoblin fell in and lined up on the exposed aft of the enemy dropship and fired. The wing and nose mounted 20 tube long ranged rockets left 60 fire trails in space, as they raced to close the distance to their target. They were joined by another 60 flame trails, which was the last of the ammunition ready to use by the old pirate ship that now was in a real navy. Still it would be the pair of large bore lasers in each wing and the pair of PPC's in the nose, which would be the bringers of death for the rest of the fight against the ComStar funded ship.

The enemy ship had not been giving quarter in any of its battles, and it was not expecting to be getting quarter in this one. They were a mercenary unit, but one that was not known much less well known. Plus let's just say. That most of the jobs it took were more than a little on the grey side, or all the way into criminal or pirate. Most other mercenary units and even local leaders would just have thrown them out of the nearest airlock. The pirate fought until the chief engineer lost the fight to control the massive fusion plasma drives and the growing number of fires within her hull. The almost 400 tons of abused mix of metals and ceramics turned into a fireball, which was about three hundred meters in diameter at its widest point. The engine was now more like a short-lived sun, than something built by the hands of man.

The flash of energy was so bright, that even the auto shield built into the massive armored glass on the Hobgoblin was not up to the task of fully dampening the effect. Everyone knew what had happened. For a few of them, it was not the first time they had seen a ship's engine have its own lunch or something that was equally energetic. The Captain of the Hobgoblin did not need to be told what happened. She was one of the few that had seen this happen before, and from a lot closer point of view.

"Okay give me an update on that Overlord and the White Rabbit. CAG land our birds and see how many are safe to re-launch. Let's start looking for anything that we might easily salvage. We are a salvage and resale company after all." This last part got a round of chuckles from a very over stressed bridge crew of the carrier. She was looking at the screens hoping that she could find two locator beacons out there among the cold of space.

The last craft to land on the carrier was the Stuka. It was the slowest, and it took almost two hours to make it back to its mother ship from his location near the enemy dropship and jumpship. By that time. Things had been worked out enough, to figure out what had happened out in this part of the deep black. The only items that might have been worth saving floating in the local space, were the two Dragonstars. That is until the head of engineering of the White Rabbit found "the crack". It went all the way through the hulls of both ships to a varying degree.

The engineering team had dumped the computers to some removable data storage devices, for exploitation later. Then they cut the parasites off of the hull of the blockade runner. They would keep speeding out into deep space between the stars. In a few weeks the pair of hulks would not even be a risk to navigation, at least within this star system. The fleet of two dropships started boosting again towards the Tramp waiting at the jump point, but at a safer rate of thrust.

Commander Copeland was reviewing the data coming into the bridge of the dropship. It was not that good; besides that, at least they were in one piece. Robert was reviewing some intercepted radio transmissions, then he felt an itch. The longer he spent reading those reports, the more powerful the itch became.

"Communication! Please point a narrow beam transmission right at the Overlord. Make sure that the auto encoding is offline. I want them to have no problem picking this up and understanding me. The message is. Let Igarashi Miya of ComStar know. Good try, but we are still not going to give up who we are on contract with. We hope they gave you a good support package for this job. Looks like you are going to need it. Message Ends." Robert could not help but smile as he spoke.

Jess was also smiling. She was thinking that whoever was on that Overlord, was behind this attack on them. As soon as Robert had said the name. All the parts fell into place out of the blue, and she agreed that ComStar was the most likely group behind this attack. She also liked that her boss was letting the other side know what he thought of them. It might be poking the lion, but sometimes you just had to do it with a big pocking wrench.

The trip back to the jump point only took another five hours. This was a lot shorter, than the planned burn towards the planet. No one was able to sleep or rest for those hours, even at only 1G of thrust. There was way too much to do, on both of the dropships. As soon as the two dropships arrived at the jump point. They docked to the larger jumpship. The now active artificial gravity plating was an asset to the crews. It would make it easier to help the wounded from the attack, if nothing else.

The Styx "was not ready" to do its next jump. It should take another two days to recharge the drives. They could "fast" charge the drive, but that was risky, and you did not want to blow your jump drive. At least not in a system, which you had just been attacked in. And Robert wanted to show the "Other Guys" that he was not in a rush to leave. It was another poke at the Lion. Besides they could use the time to make more repairs.

While they waited to charge their drive. Robert called a meeting of the senior staff. Everyone was tired. Still this was a good time to bring everyone up to speed on what had happened in other areas, and what they had done afterword's. Robert looked around at the group, and everyone had large dark bags drooping from under their eyes. This was displaying evidence of the lack of sleep and stress they had been under.

Robert decided right then, to be the one to break the ice. "We knew that someone was tracking us, and that they were hiring mercenaries or pirates to do the dirty work. We will be leaving this system in a dozen hours, unless someone has information that dictates a delay or a rush. During your updates, give me a go or no go for jump." He was just as tired as the rest of the crew, but he was forcing his voice to stay upbeat.

He looked around the table and the heads were nodding, but they were not talking. "Okay next bit of news. The Overlord did not launch any fighters, or any other space support craft for that matter. "We" think it might have been a command version of that class. The second item? It is that the Invader jumpship must have fast charged or hot loaded its jump engines. As soon as the two small craft launched from the jumpship, they collected the life pods with the help of those two other Dragonstars from the Monarch. We think that they were left behind at the start of the mission to be some sort of cover or escort for the jumpship. The jumpship took the Overlord and a Union that lifted from the planet, when they jumped out. That was half an hour ago."

The rest of the room perked up at the news. The smaller dropships did not have the equipment or personnel that the 660meter long jumpship carried. The numbers of dropships and the number of collars were not adding up. Everyone in the room could do the math. There was another enemy jumpship out there somewhere.

Robert let the quiet of the room stretch out. "We have been contacted by the planet. In fact, we have been contacted by two different groups from the planet. One contact was from the Class B HPG ComStar compound on the planet. They are saying they were "attacked" by a pirate unit, and they have suffered damage to their major systems and cannot currently transmit messages out of this system. They want us to carry word of the "attack", so that the FWL and ComStar can send help this way."

This drew a round of rolling eyes and out right dagger looks, from around the room. "The second group is saying that they are from the local government and defense force. They said that whoever attacked them? They did not do that much damage, but that they now have pulled out. They did report. That the mercenary scout lance, who seemed to be the ones that warned us of the trap. All of them had been wiped out by some very high tech mercenary or pirate unit, that landed on a Union class vessel."

This information was met with a slight rumbling from around the metal walled room. "This mercenary/pirate unit said, and they had documents, which said they were hired by the FWL when they landed. They were also told that the HPG is down, and they also would like us to carry word out about the attack. I have agreed to their request. I almost authorized a hidden message to be sent out by our HPG, to warn of a pending attack in the local area. I just can't find a way for it to get out, that does not cause us more issues down the road. I also have thought about sending down the Rabbit, but the risk is too high." He didn't need to tell the group, that he had not replied to the information request that had been passed up by ComStar to them.

Robert looked around the table. "That is all the information and updates we have gotten from the Styx. The Captain of the White Rabbit is next and will be followed by the Hobgoblin."

The Captain of the Blockade Runner let out a little breath and then straightens up in his chair. "We are shipshape and operational. We are still repairing some of the weapons fire damage to one deck. The hull and engines of my ship are sound. We have not lost any more people, now that we have the medical equipment from the Styx to support us. We also have not lost any of the "passengers". We have them stripped to their undergarments, and in one of the larger rooms….without gravity. They are not going anywhere but they are not talking, yet. My crew will need up to ten days to fix all of the visible damage from the action inside of my vessel. We have the entire electronic data and anything else we could pull out of the Dragonstars. It was not much, but we got it all. We collected all of the uniforms and weapons and put them in storage."

The Captain turned to look at the fleet commander. "The item that is driving me crazy, is the dozen of the PA(L) suits that led the boarding action. We are still checking what is left of them out. I have made sure that those items are not going to be found, by any future inspection teams. I will say that they are some kind of knockoff of the Nighthawk. Nothing like this is known to be in production, before the Star League fell. This is a game changing weapons system, and one that Higher Command will want to see. I can have a team working on it, in their free time, but right now they are still patching up holes and dents in my ship. When they find out anything more? I will pass it along, but it's going to be a while. From all of the reports I have seen, so far that is." The Captain stopped talking for a few seconds as the rest of the room made a soft rumbling sound.

When he was not asked to stop, he started talking again. "The traps, Blazer rifles, and Colonial tech auto rifles worked even better than my security people had hoped. The only area we are short in, is good body armor. What we have is the best we can have under the protocols, but standing up to battle suits? Well, it is going to be ugly. That is in anything, other than a fixed defensive point." The news of the battle suits had already gotten around to all of the attached ships on the Styx. To have it confirmed….was a distraction.

The Captain of the Hobgoblin was the first to come around. "A Command Version of the Overlord, new style of Battle Armor, and a Leopard CV that was packing Star League grade PPC's that looked to be knockoffs or very closely related to the Blankenburg line. The Inner Sphere is getting to be a very dangerous place!"

Now all the eyes were on him instead of the White Rabbit. The White Rabbit's Captain nodded to let the other Captains know that he was done with his part, and the other man could start his briefing. "I didn't mean to jump in like that, sir. We were able to recover four fighters. Currently we have been able to get one Ironsides and the Stuka on CAP. We have another Ironsides ready to launch if something nasty happens. They are not fully repaired, but they can fly. The third Ironside is in bad shape. The techs don't know if they have the parts to fully repair it. They are in fact thinking that they might have to use it as a parts supply for the other two craft of that type. We did get two confirmed anti Cylon charges going off, on the two craft we lost."

It was not long after the Colonials had made contact with the SLDF in Exile that a modification had been made to all space craft. It the Cylons got their hands on the inner sphere weapons or clan technology? They might be able to turn the tide on the human race. To stop this? It was decided that if it looked like the Cylons might capture a ship? It would be blown apart by a suicide charge. It would blow up the crews and the ship, all in one shot, leaving nothing recoverable by any side. The two explosions that had been picked up by the Hobgoblin might have been set off by the fighter pilots. Or it could have happened by enemy weapons fire. In the end? It did not matter; the secrets were kept from any outsiders just the same.

The Hobgoblin's Captain was not done. "I have been given a list of items, which the techs need to restock our supplies. The only items that they are not critically short on, is Star League level tech items. I think we will be able to find what we need on Andurien or a planet like it."

When the Captain stopped talking for almost a minute. Robert took control of the meeting. "I'm sorry for your loss, Captain. Make sure a copy of your supply lists are given to all three cargo masters. This is the reason we have cash on hand." Finding parts was going to be a lot easier than dealing with the lost pilots.

He looked around to the other Captains. "Make sure we have a complete list of all needed parts and supplies given to all Cargo Masters. I will also need a copy of those lists. You can bet SLIC and High Command are going to be picking at scabs like this when we get back. I want all items topped off as soon as we can, but I don't want anyone to know how short of supplies we are. The last thing I want is for someone to think, that we can't defend ourselves and they force the issue. I also want detailed reports, on all advanced technology that each of you all have seen used against us. I want as much ammunition on hand as I can get, when we get back home. So that we can bring bigger hammers to defend ourselves with, next time. If the techs think they can use them? I want enough of the ER PPC's removed from storage and put on the surviving Ironsides. If that is it?"

Robert looked around the room and no one indicated that they had more to say. "Okay! Jules let's keep to the plan and jump to Lopez. Thank you all for coming and we will meet again after Lopez." Robert had already prepared another mission for Kimberly and Lora to work on. He wanted to reward whoever had warned them. He was going to authorize some kind of reward, after he found out what had happened.

Exactly at the time that Robert had given in the meeting. The modified Tramp class ship left this system, and it arrived at the Lopez systems jump point. As soon as the Styx was safe. Jules transmitted the information from the government/military contact on Xanthe III. The official message from ComStar was "lost" before the Styx arrived in the Lopez system. It was like someone had kicked over a hornet's nest, four hours later. It must have taken that long for the information to be passed from a radio techs hands, to someone in higher command.

Robert was lucky because he, and the other three dropships were already on the way dirtside when the nest started moving. Jules and the Styx were getting a friendly visit from the commander of the nearby recharge station. Robert would have a matching meeting, once they were on the ground on Lopez. The locals were surprised when they asked for proof of the last attack. So, Robert turned over the 6 surviving captured personnel still in their undergarments to a very shocked investigator.

Less than 4 hours after he had turned over the "Pirates". Things started happening on the drop port of the small hot world that had two suns. One was that the local garrison commander, had opened his supply caches to Copeland's cargo masters and pocketbooks. They were able to pick up all of the armor plate, electronics, ammunition and hundreds of other spare parts that they needed, at the cost that the FWL paid for them.

There used to be a major aerospace manufacture on this planet, and according to local lore it had been destroyed by the Cappies. It had happened in one of the many times that this planet had changed hands between those two great houses. That history was working for Robert, and his people this time. The Cargo Masters were able to pick up some normally very hard to find items, to make flight certified aero fighter parts for New Circe. Those items were not cheap to acquire, even with the good will the locals currently had for Copeland's people. The specialized equipment looked like they only needed a good cleaning, before being put back into a factory.

They were able to trade the last of the Colonial weapons, and all of the Blazer rifles on this planet. At least the ones that were not now issued to the crews of the dropships, for counter boarding operations. They also sold computers to both the locals and tourist, who had come to see or ride the flying Dragons on this planet. It was a very productive five days for Robert's people. They were supposed to have lifted after the fourth day, but the last critical case was not released from the main planetary hospital for another day.

It was worth it, to have Jennifer not needed to be rolled out of a van in a wheelchair. She would walk under her own power up the loading ramp, if very slowly. She limped up the personnel access ramp into the White Rabbit with her chin held high. One item that Robert had been able to gather was not on his shopping list or RFI. He was able to watch the loading and launching of an almost regiment of Battlemechs and tanks from the local drop port. They were on the way to find out what had happened on Xanthe III.

He also was told a few of the rumors that were going around the drop port. One was that MMM had an Ultra class cannon factory in operation somewhere within MC space. They also were selling upgraded Marauders and Shadow Hawks using those same "new" cannons. They were supposed to be selling the new cannons to any one on friendly terms with the MC. The final major rumor and it was one that was going into the logbook. It was that MMM was going to be the center of recovered Star League weapons technology for this whole part of space.

On the burn to the jump point. Commander Copeland was contacted by traffic control and asked if they would delay their jump to the regional capital, for another 24-36 hours. Two other jumpships were going that way. They were a Merchant class and a Star Lord class, all with a full load of civilian dropships. It was hoped that the armed Tramp and Leopard class Carrier would be helpful. Copeland's people were doubling the firepower of the group. Robert was okay with it, because after this last attack. He wanted more witnesses, when things went sideways again.

 **Notes** :

 **The loss of the two Ironside's pilots**. They might have lived, but Gwen's charge went off due to weapons fire, and the other might have been able to punch out. That would have risked being captured, and the Wolverines had a policy for that.

 **Styx waiting**. They are down one third of their fighters. They would be just a little gun shy for at least a few jumps.

 **Specialized aero fighter equipment**. New Circe needs all of the fighter production it can get.


	33. Chapter 33 20 April 3048

**Chapter 33**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **20 April 3048 the second run**

 **Andurien System.**

It had taken the Styx two jumps to make it only 16 light years of distance, and it was closer to 30 days to make that run. That was due to the need of the other two jumpships to trade, as they went along the route. Robert and his ships were not cleared to land, right off the bat on arrival in the capital system. They were held at the jump point of what most of the locals called the capital of the Duchy of Andurien for a full week. This system was filled with space stations, jumpships, dropships, small craft and fighters of all kinds. This delay worked out well for Robert and his people, and it paid off when the engineering staff asked for a full command meeting. The reason for the meeting was that the Engineers had reached the end of what they might be able to learn using shipboard references and resources, about the recovered battle suits.

The head of the techs on the Styx, and the ones on the other dropships for that matter, was looking around the table at the other leaders of the mission. "Thank you all for coming. My team as completed as detailed of an examination of this new type of Powered Battle Armor, as they can, with the limited resources we have on hand to work with. Yes, I said new type of battle armor. It might look like a Nighthawk suit, but it's not."

The head tech looked down at her notes, and then looked back up. "First! The armor mass is the same as a Nighthawk and offers the same level of protection for weight of that powered armor. It is also the same mass as the suits we are used to seeing. It even uses a clone of the same armored glove systems, as we are used to working with. What is different, is the type of armor that covers the thing from head to toe. The Nighthawk has what I would call standard stealth, for the purposes of this meeting. This suit, we think are called Tornadoes, by stamps we found on the software. They have a lower grade of stealth armor, which I will refer to as basic stealth for this meeting. None of my people have worked on suits, but a few of the security people have studied some of the literature. We are more or less making it up as we go."

She stopped talking for a second and an image of the Tornado suit was put on display. "It's still very good, as stealth systems go. It's just not as advanced as what a Nighthawk is supposed to be able to do. This suit makes up for the lower tech stealth system, by caring a powerful, almost freaky powerful, ECM set up. The other item that is different between these two suits, is that this suit does not have built in jump jets. I know that this is confusing information, but the reason I felt that we needed this meeting. It is, that I think. Well sir! We need to get home as soon as possible!"

The Captain of the Lisbon Maru was looking around the room, but the face was a dead giveaway to what he was thinking. He was not sure why this was being asked of the command group. He put his hands flat on the metal desktop and decided to find out the why. He was a captain of a dropship within the SLDF, that should give him some leeway to ask a few questions.

"Why the rush? We have been attacked, but we are not that far under strength. Not when you add in the crew from the merchant class and Rob Roy, that we picked up after the sale of those vessels on Canopus."

The briefer gave a smile that put Robert on edge. It looked like someone was about to be sent out to look for a can of rotor wash or a lefthanded torque wrench. "Sir? It's not the personnel losses or the loss of effectiveness of our ships due to combat damage. It's the suits we are now carrying. What has stopped us from making a major production runs of more Nighthawk suits, back home? It has been because of two major components that are key to the Nighthawks utility. One is that we could not make large batches of the stealth embedded armor. The other one is the small but very powerful jump jets the Nighthawk has." The only reason that the best tech in the SLS Styx engineer department knew this type of information, was that she had been helping with the hand making of the micro jump engines before being reactivated.

The tech looked around the room, and after wetting her lips. She kept talking. "I think with the eight fully functional or mostly functional suits, that we were able to put together from the dozen in the attack. We might give our people enough material to make more of this type of suits. It might not be possible, right now. I will tell you, that I think that they might be able to duplicate this suit in the hundreds or thousands per run. They will not be a match for the Nighthawks, in all ways. We still could save lives by improving the ground pounder and marine's ability to withstand battle damage and carry more powerful weapons. Think of the lives we could save? Even if we can only make enough of them to outfit our scouts and a few of our counter boarding teams?" Her tone went lower as she finished her line of thought. Most of the people around this table knew that she had lost her youngest daughter to a small Cylon boarding of the Zug on the last mission to old Colonial space.

Robert knew this and he could feel the pain coming off the woman. "That is some news, senior tech. I think that it's a good idea to plan on taking the shortest route home, when we leave here. That is, if we can do so with a full cargo load. We have a mission statement and requirements, which we must try to meet, and our command is expecting us to meet them."

He held his hands up to stop the woman from talking. "I agree. That we should not stop at just any place, and we will take the shortest track to get us back home. This is a regional capital, so it should have some of the more, hard to find items we have been looking for."

The meeting broke up soon after. Questions were asked, and some answers were given, but most of it was simply that they did not know that much at this time. They were limited with the amount and types of testing equipment they had on the ships of this convoy. Ten hours after the meeting had been closed. Commander Copeland was given clearance to land all of his dropships, at the main drop port outside of Jojoken.

It was a ten day burn to the planet, and for once. They were not told to hold in orbit, but to make a least time approach to the drop port at a very specific angle. This was the busiest drop port that Robert and his ships had stopped at, so far to date. It was even bigger and busier than the drop port on Canopus, by a few orders of magnitude. Before they even had landed. The White Rabbit and the Lisbon Maru were being contacted by groups on the ground.

Unlike almost all of the other planets that they had stopped at, on both trips. On this planet? There were people and groups, which had high ticket items for sale, or you could buy. Those same types of high-ticket items that might not come up on or be advertised on the "normal" markets. When new ships or trading companies paid a visit? It was news, and they would be looked at.

Word of what Copeland Supply, Salvage and Resale had been trading for the past year, had gotten around already to a lot of different ears in this whole sector of space. It did not take Robert long to figure out that they were going to need more than the planned five days of trading and both cargo masters. It was going to take dozens of man hours just to look at the sale and want ads.

They had only been on the ground 24 hours, and all of the remaining ultra-autocannons and computers were sold are set aside for viewing by interested buyers. The half dozen second generation PPCs were also moved out of the cargo bays. They could have moved the last ER PPCs, but Robert had stopped that. He had a plan for those last few energy weapons. His orders were questioned with only a raised eyebrow from the cargo masters. They knew that Copeland did not want to take any "normal' cargo back home with them.

Robert had learned from the first mission, when to let the reigns lose on his people. While the dropship's Captains and Cargo Masters were doing their jobs. Robert and Jess went about seeing what might be of use back home that no one had thought of yet. It was fun, if you did not have to have four armed and big escorts with you every step of the way.

The first item to look at, had come from an advertisement that said someone was selling a Hoplite type battlemech. They claimed that it dated back to the FWL civil war. Jess and Robert set a meeting time and the location given was strange, but they went anyway. A car and driver had been "donated" by the local FWL garrison commander, as a measure of thanks for "helping" out when one of their worlds had been attacked by "scumbag pirates". Then again, it could have been the ER PPCs they bought earlier in the day. The FWL had always been short of that type of weapon, much less having access to a second generation one. When they had given the address to the driver for the day. He had laughed, but he had refused any questions on why he had given that response to the written down address.

The driver took Robert, Jess, Mike, and the escorts to the location on the notecard. It turned out to be a large strip mall on the edge of town. In a center park like area of the shopping area, was the mech in question. The lightly armored hover passenger transport came to a stop, right at the opening in a white painted knee-high fence. It was going around the machine of war standing in a green space. It did not take long for Robert to figure out what was going on. The current owner had painted the Hoplite in Wolf's Dragoons colors and was selling tickets, for people to climb on and around the 55ton machines or take images with it.

The large black painted hover transport had quickly drawn the attention of the ticket seller, whose picture had been on the posted sales announcement. Robert stepped away from the transport and intercepted the balding overweight man heading their way. "Tomas Davis? I'm Robert Copeland. You were told that we would like to check out your machine, to see if my partners and I would like to purchase it."

The sweating man with a receding hairline met Roberts open hand with a sweaty one and gave a bad breath and brown toothed smile. "Yes! Thank you for coming. Just give me a few minutes to clear out the last of the ticket buyers."

It took only a few minutes to clear out the fenced offed area around the mech. While Mike was checking out the war machine, Jess was going through the digital books or logs. That left Robert trying to stay away from Mr. Sweaty Palms. He was able to stay away from the seller by simply moving around the area "looking" at the battlemech from different angles. Mike and Jess did not have to track Robert down, when they were ready. They just radioed him any of the information, that was relevant for what Robert needed to do his part of the job. The bad part? Was now Robert was going to have to deal with Mr. Davis up close and personal.

Robert walked up to the ticket selling stand, were Tomas was waiting with his arms crossed over his big belly. Robert did not offer his hand this time, he was in professional buyer's mode. "Tomas let's talk some business. What do you want for your display?"

Tomas rose from his stool and gave a huge smile. He was thinking his payday was finally here. "Ten million C-bills, and you take care of shipping." This was his well-rehearsed demand.

Robert was a little taken aback. That was nowhere near what he had expected to hear, as the sale price. It had come so far out of left field, that his poker face fell for a full second. "Tomas! This is not a joke. How much are you asking for your mech?"

Now it was the turn of Tomas to let his face fall. He had been expecting to get that number for his fully functional mech. "It's a documented Wolf's Dragoons machine, in full working order, and so ten million C-bills is a fair price."

Now Robert knew what he was dealing with. This man was not a mech jock or a tech, both of those types of people would have led off with that comment about it being in full working order. This guy was out of his depth and Robert could work with that. "Tomas, what you have is a 55ton war machine that is very quickly going to be only useful for a backwoods garrison militia. In by soon? I would say in ten to fifteen years, if that."

Tomas turned white and then started sputtering. "But it was used by the Wolf's Dragoons!" He was holding onto that saying, like it was some kind of magic spell.

Robert had to fight a smile down. "Yes, it was used by the Wolf's Dragoons. And you even painted it to look like it had been in the Black Widow's company. I think both of us know that his machine never was used by her or anyone in her company. What I want to ask you is this? How many enemies has the Wolf's Dragoons made over the years? Whoever is piloting this machine? They are going to draw them to it, like a moth to a fire. The other idea is that anyone who wants to brag about taking down a Wolf's Dragoon mech? They will fire first at this machine, even if they are not mad at the Dragoon's. I'm kind of surprised that the Seventh Kommandos had not paid you a visit already. So, now that we have the facts on your mech out in the open. What do you want to get out of it?"

Tomas was still set, but his voice was getting weaker. "It's a Dragoons mech and it is fully operational, except for ammunition! Seven million?" The last part was delivered as a question and not a statement. He had not realized how much he had over played his hand, until just now.

Robert was back in salesman's mode, now that the other man was off of his high horse. "Seven Million? I could not find a price for the last time one of these machines was sold on the open market for. I did find were something like this should be worth 4.4 million."

Tomas's jaw swung open at the number that Robert had given him. "No way! I can make that much in ticket sales and rentals in that timeline."

Robert let a smile cross his face, which was not friendly. "A few years? I'm surprised that some of those Combine boys have not come over and blown it up on you, yet. You know after Misery? I don't think those crazy samurai were happy with the outcome."

Tomas was again doing the dead fish thing with his mouth. Robert had reviewed all the books that they had picked up on the last trip. He had been interested in any information about the Wolf's Dragoons that he could find. That was why he really wanted this machine as much as SLIC. There had been a dozen articles about the Dragoons using mechs that had not been seen in the Inner Sphere for a hundred or more years.

The Hoplite had been pointed out in more than a few of those reports that were on the open market. The last Hoplite, before 3005, had been seen in around 2835. The digital logs on this machine only went back to 3005, when the Dragoons first showed up in the Inner Sphere. This could be what higher command had wanted. It was not an Imp, but it was as close as he thought likely he would be able to get on this run. That is unless he went to Outreach and tried to pick one up from them, personally.

Robert thought it was now time to drop his hammer and jump the bid. "Five million is my top bid. That is 600k above capability price. What do you think Tomas? Do I need to wave and have my people leave in our rental? Or do we transfer the money, right now?"

Tomas did not know where he went wrong. He had turned down that much money before, but that had been over two years ago. What this off worlder had said, made sense. Too much sense, and Tomas was now wondering if he should have gotten out of this business a long time ago. He was seeing enemies at every turn of his head. Five million would barely cover the loan he had taken out, when he had first bought this hunk of junk. It would pay the loan off and leave him a few dozen k's in the bank. Then again, he had done a lot of ticket sales over the years. It was not the payday he had thought that he was going to get. Without knowing it, his hand went out to shake on the deal.

Robert took the hand and shook it. Jess was nearby, and just out of earshot. When she saw the hand shoot out? She knew the deal was done. She quickly had her noteputor up, and had Tomas signing that he had agreed to sell his machine. Jess was surprised at the final sales price. Mechs were always a Sellers' market, but this was a regional capital. She thought that Commander Copeland could have gotten a better deal on the display. She would ask about it later. The deal was done, and they had just picked up one of the key items, that they had been asked almost by name to get on this run. When the last document was signed. She turned to her captain.

"Sir, I will contact a local moving company and see when they can pick up the mech for us."

Robert nodded looking around the long strip of shops. "Good, Jess. Make sure to tell them that we will pay extra, if they can get it to the drop port before midnight tonight. While we're here, why don't we all get some shopping done?"

Robert turned back to look at Tomas. "I don't mind if you keep selling tickets, but any damage done to my machine will come out of your pocket."

He turned and pointed to the shopping area, and the group started walking that way with sly smiles on their faces. Robert had already upped the personnel cargo space that each person could have for items. Stopping here was going to fill their ship's allowance. Jess nodded and in less than an hour. She had arranged to have the Hoplite picked up and dropped off back at the Lisbon Maru.

The strip mall was a full retail set up. The volume per item was normally very small, but they did have a wide selection of items. Robert made a mental note to pass this updated location to his crews. The prices were a lot lower, than the shops that were closer to the drop port. It was during one of these stops that Robert saw a 3D image playing on one wall. There was half a dozen like screens all around the mall playing a different round of advertisements.

Every third set of images was an advertisement for S.L. Lewis Incorporated. They were talking up the new Savannah Master, which was now being sold with new built Edasich made Omni 25 fusion engines. They had been using the supply of Omni 25s that the company founder had found years ago. While Robert was watching the images. Mike and Jess walked up to either side of him. The displays were now cutting between battle ROM and other images showing off the little 5ton hovercraft in combat.

Robert looked first left and then right, as they watched the flashing images. Then his eyes were drawn back to the flashing images. "I was thinking. Did either one of you, see that big report the news did on that one pilot?" He was not going to use words like Colonial, Viper, or anything close to that. Not at least till they were out of the Inner Sphere zone.

Mike was nodding, but Jess was not sure which one he was talking about. She had to dodge around the protocols, but she gave it a shot anyway. "Are you referring to the short blond top gun?" She kept the voice level as glass.

Robert did not make eye contact with them. He was watching a hover craft slide across some flat ground at an incredible rate of speed. The pilot of the craft looked to have meant to slide, because it fired a laser built into the round nose of the little one-man craft. Robert watched it strike a hover APC with a hand making a big Okay sign in white paint on the side.

"Yes, that is the one. But what I was thinking, is that. We have a customer that likes light and fast weapons platforms. They might have some interest in those little hotrods." Robert pointed to the nearest screen with his chin.

Jess pointed at some information displayed on the side of the images. "Sir? That looks to be some local contact information. I can see what they have on hand?"

Robert was nodding his head. "Yes do. They even tell you how much one costs." A number of 91,000 c-bills was now in flashing lights over a slowly turning 3 D image of the hovercraft.

They spent the next few hours shopping and window shopping, until Jess's computer beeped at her. She had a text message waiting for her. It was short, simple, and to the point of saying, that the mech transport was there. Robert and the rest walked the almost mile back to the little park, that was about to lose its center peace. It was not a sad time. The mech was going to a good home that would soon find out her true history.

"Jess do you remember that time we picked up that Wolfhound. I wonder what ever happened to that guy….. Don. I kept forgetting to send him a message." Robert was watching as someone was lowering the no armed mech onto the larger flatbed trailer. This trailer was huge, and it did not have wheels but tracks like a tank under the bed. This machine was used to taking a lot bigger load, than a 55ton oddly painted mech. Robert was betting that he was going to pay extra, but he wanted that machine in his cargo holds as soon as possible. All before Tomas changed his mind and tried to back out of the sale or anything, more stressful.

Jess froze, and then slowly turned to face her commander. She did not think that she had broken any of the long lists of rules, but now she was not so sure. "Yes, I remember him. I have sent him a few messages. I even saw him on the stop at Canopus IV. He had his surgery and it worked, but not as well as he had first hoped. He is working his way up quickly, at an Industrial mech training school. He owns two construction mechs outright, and he is working on paying off a third one. He asked me, twice, if we could give him and his stuff a ride off world. He does not feel that he is being used to his full potential, out on the edge of developed space."

Robert now was looking at Jess, but he did not look mad. "That is good to know. If you want to keep in contact with him? I am okay with it but remember the rules."

That was all he said. On the insides he was laughing, thinking back to the grief he had gotten over his relationship with Terry. The rest of the day and into the night went at almost an enjoyable pace. Then they had to return to the three grounded dropships, for the night. Robert went right to bed and was asleep all the way until, the alarm went off to let him know it was time to start the new day. That was one of the things about a large space port. There was a lot of security.

The next day started with a full staff meeting, well full minus Jules. He was still on the Styx at the jump point. Robert was the first one in the meeting room, and he took the free time to do the paperwork that he had not done the day before. Everyone was in a good mood, as they entered the room. But as soon as the fix mount clock said 0900? They all stopped talking. Robert made eye contact with Jess. She would be the first briefer today.

Jess took the nod and sat up straighter in her chair. "Yesterday was productive, with some key items being acquired. We had delivered, a Mech that was lost by the Wolf's Dragoons and then recovered by a third party. The other major item was the last two Leopard dropship engines, we were asked to pick up. This makes six that we have and the total number we were asked to bring back. The Captain of the Styx reports. That he would like to take up an offer of a 100ton Stuka, which was put on the market by a mercenary unit that is hurting for money. He will need clearance to transfer six million c-bills for it. He reported that it passed inspection, but it could use some paint and some armor plate. Other than that? It was good to go."

Robert looked over at the Hobgoblin. This craft would be flying off of his decks, so it was his call if they were going to buy it. "Captain what do you think? Do we buy it, and then move one of the Ironsides pilots to it?"

The Captain of the Hobgoblin was not caught flat footed with this question, because the Styx had been in contact with him before he had gone to bed. There had been almost half a dozen fighters for sale on and off of the planet. The number rose and fell almost hourly. The one thing that all of them had in common was that none of them were upgraded, in any way. Which was bad, but the 100ton Stuka could be a good counter dropship craft. The first one had proven it already. And it was best that you did not mix lance mates for too long.

"Sir, I think we should get it. Fighters work better with the same craft in the same lance. As to manning? I know that there are two recently ex-aero fighter pilots in our crews. I would like to take them both on as pilots."

He stopped talking for a second and put a sly grin on his face. "Commander, before you ask. No, we will not be able to upgrade it to match the Sled we have now. We just don't have the parts that we would need to do something like that. They still will have the same speed and armor and most of the other support systems. The addition of this craft would put us only one fighter under strength, which will be a surprise to anyone who might want to cause trouble."

Robert turned to Jess and nodded his head up and down. Jess nodded back and made a note on her digital device. "Okay. I will send the Styx a message and give them the okay to purchase the fighter. Next item, Commander. I was able to contact a supply park, about the Savanna Masters. They have a dozen for sale at the listed price. I asked, and I was told firmly. That the list price, is the list price. They do deliver and shipping to the drop port is for free. How many would you like me to order."

Robert made a thin-lipped face. How many should he get? He knew, down to the C-Bill what he had been able to make for the Colonials so far. "Well Hell! I will get them all. It the Colonials don't have enough cash, when we land for the whole batch. They can buy them one at a time from our people like any other car. I bet someone will pick them up, after we land. Also ask if they can throw in a parts support package for them, the larger the better. If not, then see what you can get without it costing an arm and a leg?"

He had not said something out loud, but a smile was on his face has he pictured a Viper Pilot called Starbuck at the controls of one of those death machines. "Jess have all of them sent over. Worse case? The medium lasers and the fusion engines could be used other places."

Jess nodded again, and then went to the next item on her list. "We were contacted by a unit that noticed one of the items on the shopping list." She looked up at Commander Copeland, and then around the table. "I didn't send a reply, because I did not know if it was a joke or not. Why would the Colonials want water warcraft, like a Sea Skimmer?"

Robert looked at Jess, and he quickly picked up on a blind spot in her knowledge base. He found it very hard not to smile. "Jess, they are not worried about Cylons landing on the planet and having to fight them on the waterways of New Circe. They have that large river, which runs all the way to the coastal seaways. They want craft like that, to help police their own territory's waterways. Don't forget that even a few weeks before they were wiped out by the Cylons. They had problems with their different tribes not getting along with other tribes. They are looking at any and every hole in their experience after that wildfire. Please set up that meeting, and I will take point on this one. I met with the Colonial Admiral before we left, so I think it should be me on the blame line."

Jess made the note, but she still did not think this was a good idea. "Okay? The next item. Did you get a chance to read your private messages?" Robert gave her an odd look, then shook his head side to side. Jess decides to go ahead with the issue. "Sir, they are in your inbox. They are a few different messages, but all are on the same topic, and they all came from Kimberly and Lora. Did you have them looking for an up gunned cargo hauler, Sir?"

Now Robert was the one that was on his back foot. He had to spend a few long seconds racking his mind, to remember if he had done that. Then it hit him, and he had to smile. "I sent them a message, right after our ComStar surprise and had them looking to see what they could find. I take it they might have found something that we can use?"

Robert and now both cargo ship's Captains were looking at her with interest. It did not take long for Jess to react. "Sir? The message that was sent to us, as a staff, said they might have something. They also said the MC was very happy with the Rob Roy, and they are interested in buying the White Rabbit. But Kimberly has found a cargo modified Union class dropship. They pulled the mech bays out but left the fighter bays on the craft. The total cargo space will be within about 150 tons, of what the White Rabbit gives us."

The Captain of the White Rabbit head snapped to look at the Convoy commander. It had always been in the books to sell the Blockade Runner. The SLDF Navy hated supporting these craft, mainly due to their pasts and the whole idea that they were designed to be blockade runners. But they had worked out so well, on these runs. That the Rabbit's Captain had forgotten that he was only in temporary command of the ship.

Robert made eye contact with the dropship Captain, but he was talking to the rest of the room also. We knew that this might come up before too long. Getting a Union class would make supporting these missions a lot easier for the whole SLDF Navy. It was a pain having to keep parts and training for a one-off dropship like the White Rabbit, no matter how well she had done what we had been asking of her.

"I will review the messages and get as much detail as I need. What I want, is a detailed plan on how long it would take to get the Rabbit ready to turn over to any new owners from the local area. Give me the facts, so I can make an informed decision." Robert looked around the table and everyone saw that Jess was putting her notes away.

The Captain of the Hobgoblin was next on the briefing list. "I am happy to report. That all four of my craft are now fully operational, at 100 percent of expected capabilities. We have also refilled our parts and ammunition storage. We can launch at any time with the catapults, and a runway outside of my ship has been marked for emergency landing. We have been cleared to do any test flights, that we might need to do. I think someone from the local government passed it around, that we took some heavy damage fighting pirates in FWL space. Do you want me to do some "test flights" or not, sir?" Having kept the other Ironsides from being seen had now seemed to have been a good idea, as proven by the last battle.

Robert looked straight down the tabletop, for a few long seconds weighing out risk and rewards. "If you need to do them for safety or something along those lines? Yes. If not? Then no. I don't want everyone to know that we are getting back to normal fighting levels. I don't want to make it easy for any attacker to plan things out. I know it will not take long for word to get out that we are buying another Stuka, and that can't be helped." Robert gave a head nod and the meeting continued.

The Leopard dropship also put out its plan, for restocking its food stores. The Lisbon Maru updated everyone on cargo space and all of the different cargos due into them already. When it came back to the Rabbit, for its update. Its Captain had something he wanted to put out, which had not been covered yet.

"Sir, we have been tracking over a company of mechs on roving patrols around the drop port at all times. We also picked up more than a company of hover tanks, moving around the area around our dropships. The hover tanks are sticking to what look like established routs. The mechs seem a bit more random in their movements, but they are staying on the main routes around the port. We have picked up three transports "near" us, which might be concealed observation points. So far, all the signal intercepts have been of FWL equipment, and not ComStar linked items. From what we have been able to "gather". It is that they are primarily trying to figure out if we, are somehow connected to an undercover ComStar operation."

Robert nodded as the younger man talked, and when he was finished, and the rounds of laughter had stopped. "Okay keep an eye on them. They might be locals or ComStar might have learned, that we were picking up on their communications equipment. They also could be a double blind, or something. If they want to watch? We will let them. We are not doing anything against the local laws, yet."

Robert looked around the table and made eye contact with two of the Captains. "Still, let's make sure they don't see too much. Also, let's not squander the information that the White Rabbit has given us." He looked around the table one more time.

"Okay, it seems like we are finished here. Let's be about our day then." Robert rose from his chair and started to exit the room. He was quickly followed by the rest of the command staff. Robert made his way to the bridge and waited for its ships master to show, after he had checked on his people after the meeting. He wanted to have a private talk with this dropship's commander.

You might think that Robert and his escorts, along with Jess, would have to catch a flight to some seaport or river port to check out something called a Sea Skimmer. Where else would you be going to check out water combat craft? That was not the case. A mercenary unit was just coming off of a long garrison tour on a water rich world, somewhere in the Inner Sphere. They were going somewhere else now. Someplace undisclosed that they did not need as many of these types of vessels to do the mission they were hired to complete.

Robert had no idea where the unit had picked them up. They were selling them, and Robert was looking to buy. That was all he needs to know and that could be a match made in heaven, or hades. It kind of depends on your point of view at the time. The location on the meeting was on the other side of the drop port, about ten miles from the current location of the three dropships. The area was listed as long-term landing spots, on the drop port map. The rates here were cheaper, and units and companies could stay in one location for anywhere between a few months to a few years. All without being in the way of faster turning around transports and cargo haulers.

When Robert and his entourage exited the hover transport? They were met by a woman between 40 and 45, but she could have been younger. She was in some kind of military type of field uniform; which Robert had not seen before. The silver oak leaves pinned onto her shoulder? Now those he did know. When Robert was out of the transport, he makes sure his uniform looks good. Then walked quickly to the waiting officer.

Lt Col Lisa Travis had just step out of one of the warehouses, which her unit was renting along with the landing pads on the back side of the building. She was expecting a meeting with a visiting merchant. Her commander had set this up the day before, without letting her know. The note to her, had only asked that she try to get some of the unit's money back from picking up some upgraded weapons. Until she had read the note? She had no idea where her boss had picked up two of those high-end weapons. As the second in command of the military unit? That did not make her that happy with her commander.

It was her primary job, while they waited for the next contract to start, was to help the Old Man reorganized the unit. That included starting to put in the groundwork to help it grow to a full Regiment. They were not there, yet. But if she could sell this stuff? It would help. If she could keep the old man from buying too many shiny new toys from any sellers? That also would be a great help in the long term. She was having flash backs of those Vindicators he had almost picked up a few years back. That would have been a nightmare to support.

She saw the large passenger transport coming her way. She was hoping that it was the appointment that she was NOT looking forward to having to deal with. They were almost a half an hour early, when she saw a tall man in a ship's jumpsuit get out of the transport. She was impressed, by her first impression. He did not have a "rank" tab, but you could tell he was in command. He checked his uniform, before coming over at the quick step, and offered his hand to her. She smiled, but smiles were not her cup of tea. Putting her foot up someone's ass? Now that was more her cup of tea. The Old Man was good at smiling at the right times.

"I'm Colonel Travis. You must be Captain Copeland."

The hard-looking woman had a good grip, as Robert took the hand. "Good to meet you. I understand that you might have some items in excess that I'm looking for."

Lisa nodded and let go of the hand, to point into the open warehouse door behind her. She knew that her face was saying more than she wanted. "I was told that we do. If you and your people will follow me? We have all of our "excess" in this warehouse."

Lisa led the group deeper into the well-lit warehouse. It was filled with "stuff". A lot of the items were for water-based operations. Towards the end of the warehouse. They passed two massive pipe shaped vessels, which might have been submarines or huge missiles. Jess could not help herself. She had gotten out of practice of being quiet when she had a question.

Jess stopped walking and points to the cargo on one of the long flatbed trailers. "What is this Colonel?"

Colonel Travis stopped and looked at where the younger woman was pointing. "That is a Neptune class attack submarine. We have two of the 100ton vessels. That one has some battle damage, but it's on the side that you can't see from here. We were not able to fully repair some of the equipment, but we have a detailed report on all damage."

Robert used the opening to find out some more information, which he did not need but wanted to know. "Battle damage? So, where did you get this stuff? Am I going to be looking over my shoulder for the last owners wanting to do a little repossession?"

Col Travis locked eyes with the merchant, and he lost a few points in her book. "We were on a mission on a Cappie world, putting down an uprising for a year. It turned out that it was the Federated Commonwealth that was supplying them. We took out two of the units that the FedCom had hired, before our contract ran out. Everything we are selling has been registered and cleared for legal sale by the FWL, at the national level."

Robert tilted his head at the hit, and then tried to patch things up between the officer and him. That was as about as legal as you could get. As long as you did not upset someone very high on the food chain somewhere, these were clean goods. "Sorry Colonel. We have been on the edge of space for too long, it seems. I am sorry to say, that I don't have the money or the clearance to pick up those two." He really wanted to pick them up, for use back home. The idea of being able to fight underwater? That was intriguing to a spaceman. Robert was thinking that, this was too much money to risk on too many unknowns. So, he was going to have to pass.

Col Travis took the apology and nodded back and started walking again. At the very end of the narrow building, was what Robert thought he was looking for. They stopped at the knife shape bow of the first vessel. "Okay, Col Travis! What have we got here?"

Col Travis slapped the smooth knife sharp bow near the bottom, and this time the smile fit her hard face. "These are a pair of 25ton Sea Skimmer class Hydrofoil ships built for the LCAF. She can cruise at just under 130kph, with a rated top speed of 194kph. I will tell you that she can reach that speed, and it was one hell of a ride when it gets to top out."

She was still patting the hull like it was a pet, and she had a lost look in her eyes for a few seconds as she remembered something. "Our contract gave us 50/50 on all salvage we could get, as well as a first claim on the recovery of any battlefield salvage. We still got screwed, and they kept taking the good stuff that we pulled out of the battles with our own equipment. They were only leaving us the dregs, for the most part."

She had a twinkle in her eyes as she kept talking. "Before we pulled out? One of our people saw these babies just sitting around the drop port not far from us. They were even on trailers ready to ship out. I thought they were ours, so I had them loaded right before we blew that pop stand." She stopped talking but she had on an evil smile. "It turns out they were for someone else. Oh well, now they are listed as belonging to us as legal battle salvage with MRB. It will not replace even the two light mechs we were still owed, but it was something. And something is better than nothing."

Both Jess and Robert were now smiling. This was not the first story that they had heard along those lines. But it was the first one, where the hired people could get one over on one of the major houses or their flunkies. Robert took the lead, and he let a smile come to his own face. "Colonel Travis, I like your style! I would like for my people to check them out, as much as we can and not be in water. When they are done? Then we can talk about some numbers."

Colonel Travis did not even nod at the statement she had heard. She only handed over a noteputor with the information on the ship. Robert passed it to Jess and three of his escorts. It would be an hour later, but each ship passes inspection. They were told that they looked close to factory fresh. Not one bit of battle damage could be found or marked as fixed by the latest owners. "Someone" had spent a lot of money doing any repairs that "battle" salvage should dictate.

Robert was standing beside the mercenary Light Colonel and they had not said a word while they waited, and they did not need to. That is until Jess came out of the top hatch of the last vessel and gave a thumb up sign to her commander. Between the sign and the huge grin on her face, Robert knew enough. It was very rare to have something to be 100 percent as advertised.

Robert turned to the Col Travis. "Okay Colonel. I'm interested. What do you need out of these two boats?"

Colonel Travis was happy, but it did not show on her face. She was ready to start skinning this cat. She was hoping that they might want one of the boats. If she had the money, she would have wanted to keep one for herself. Until her first ride in one, she had not known that she was a water woman. "We need 350k per boat." She was eye locked on the merchant. Her face had not moved an inch, the words had fallen out of her mouth only about a second after Robert had asked.

Robert had to fight to keep his eyebrows from climbing. That number had been his planned opening bid. He bit his lip on one side of his mouth. Did he want to drive the price down, or not? These boats were listed as being about 370k straight from the factory. He didn't like screwing someone over that needed the money. He really did not want to mess over someone who had just gotten a raw deal from someone else. So, in his heart. He knew what the right thing was to do. Now it was up to his pocketbook to agree with his heart.

Col Travis had seen the face change on the merchant and thought she might have blown the deal. Sea Skimmers were not something everyone was looking for every day. She was about to ask what his offer was, when she was shocked by the hand coming up for a handshake. She almost did not hear what he had said.

"It's a deal Col. Travis, and we will take both boats at that price. I will have a tow truck, or something sent over here as soon as we can to get them."

Robert could see the twinkle in the mercenary officer's eyes. He saw Jess jump down from the trailer. As it turned out. She had firsthand boating experience, from back on their home world. It was not in large or underwater craft, but she could sail the cold waters of her home planet. She could even run a good-sized power boat ten or twenty miles off the coast before she was drafted. Robert pitched his voice to carry the twenty feet to his right hand "man".

"Jess we are getting both of them. Please contact a moving company and get them to our droppers."

Jess nodded then wiped sweat that was coming off of her forehead in sheets of saltwater that had never seen the ocean. She pulled up her noteputor and started punching in numbers, as she closed in with the mercenary and her commander. She was surprised at the low number, for an almost new high-speed combat vessel. When she was done with everything, she nodded to her boss.

"Sir, they will be able to get a truck over here in a few hours, and at no extra cost. The funds have been transferred to the registered accounts for them."

Robert turned now and looked at the Colonel. "Okay Col Travis, now that you have almost recouped what your unit spent buying the cannons from us. I would like to get a better look, and some more information about those workmechs we passed standing by those Neptune's."

This was the first that she knew anything close to about the cost of the new weapons her boss had picked up. 700k was only about half the cost of a bug mech, but it moved them closer to that goal. Trading useless, to them boats, for almost the cost of two Star league tech weapons? That was even better. They had not wanted the damaged Neptune's, but now they wanted to check out the 4 extra workmechs they had been given to replace two combat machines. She let her face drop a little. Now she looked less like a warrior with a toothache, and friendlier. She pointed the way and started talking. Now it was time to see how close she could get to the cost of a new combat machine.

"We have four environmental sealed workmechs in the Buster class. They were used for loading and offloading ships and cargo submarines in shallow saltwater. They are not combat damaged, and we have a full inspection done when we landed. We took the supply port by surprise, otherwise they might have tried something dumb. It has happened before." Travis let a frown deepen on her lined face that seem to go on forever as she had flashbacks.

Jess had Mike check out each of the machines. By the time that the single tow truck had picked up the second Sea Skimmer, they were done with their inspection. Jess was still doing the paperwork, while Mike walked the first workmech out to the White Rabbit. Robert spent four million C-Bills on the mechs, when it was all said and done. Robert was split on if the workmechs would be used in space or on the water, when they got home. Either way, they would be very useful to his people. The Colonials might not touch them with a 10m pole, but Clan Wolverine would.

While the off-planet group was driving off of the drop port for some dinner. Col Travis had three of her people take the remaining workmechs over to Robert's ships for loading. They would be getting a taxi ride back to their home. The mercenary had been very happy with the deal and had offered her people up to do the job. Jess noticed that her commander was staring out the windows and saying very little to the rest of the group. She didn't know if something was wrong, but she did know that this was not the place to bring it up.

Dinner was held in a nice restaurant, with just the five of them. By this time? Even the escorts could feel that something was wrong, and like Jess. They know that this was not the place or time to ask about what was wrong. They did check their weapons, just in case something went sideways. It was this movement that did not go unnoticed by the people around them. Their reactions brought Robert back to "the World."

Robert now noticed the actions and thought he knew why, after looking closely at Jess. "Oh, it's not really anything Jess. I just have been thinking about those 100ton submarines." A switch went off in his head, and he finished his glass of very good wine in a single long pull. "Let's head back to the ships. Jess, I need to see you in the briefing room when we get back."

Robert paid the dinner tab and the group left the restaurant, but most in the group were not smiling. They did not go straight back to the drop port after all. Robert had to put on his Commander's hat, and he went to see the local lord of the area. And by area? It was not just the planet or system, but this region of explored space. While he had been paying for dinner, a message had come to him. It was an "invitation" to a meeting that was currently on going.

It was only a meeting to review data, which was now coming in from the last few systems they had visited. It was not a public meeting, but it was a very popular one. This was much to Robert's dismay. Three of the people that were there, were from the local ComStar offices. The general gist of the meeting was that the locals were buying the ComStar version of events. That it was just a random pirate attack, or maybe a rogue mercenary unit with some fake paperwork. Robert was not happy, but at the same time. He also was not that surprised with the turn of events. He left the meeting, making sure he did not shake hands with the robed clad group when he left the high-level meeting. He had already peed in that pool, and he was still out of chlorine.

When they finally made it back to the White Rabbit. Robert went to his meeting room to get back to working on his reports. Jess went to her room and worked on her short-term projects. When she had most of them done, she walked to the meeting room. The hatch was open, so after striking once on the hatch she steps into the room.

"Sir, you wanted to see me about something. You didn't want to talk to me about it in public? I have my reports done. Do you want to talk, now?"

Robert looked up and waved her to a seat. He did not say anything for a while and then he made a sour face. "Yes, I would. I can't get those Neptune's out of my head. I was trying to remember about one of the reports from "the group". It's not like we have those types of files that we can review while on these runs."

Robert looked up at the metal roof of this meeting room. "Do you remember something about one of the planets "back there", which was mostly water?"

Jess was blinking and thinking as fast and as hard as she could. This was skirting the edges of "The Protocols" with a very fine edge. It had not crossed the line, but it went right up to the line and peeked over it. Still she had to answer the question also without breaking those same "Protocols". It took her a full minute to remember the information and work out how best to phrase it. "Yes, I remember one like that. So why is that bothering you?"

Robert was still looking up. "Jess, how would we be able to scout that planet, and how effective do you think our stuff would be in doing that recon? What if we could drop this submarine there? And then just let it do its' job?"

Jess now was confused and was thinking as hard and fast as she could. "Sir? I can see that but, its low tech. I mean they need an internal combustion engine to power the damn things. How would you keep it fueled on any long-term deployment behind enemy lines? Why not just use a dropship and hide it underwater, or something along those lines? A planet is a big place to hide something the size of a small dropship."

Robert looked down from the ceiling and made eye contact with her for a second. Then he pulls out a data pad and reviewed some private notes and reports. "Yes, it has an ICE, and it needs something called a HyPerOx to make it run. The engine alone weights in about 29tons. Think about how much cargo space you could gain, if you swapped it out for a high-tech Extra Light 270 rated fusion engine. Also think about the Torpedoes they were talking about. I had no idea what they were, until I looked them up. They are things that we don't know about, and we cannot make back home. It would add another set of weapons to fight "Them" with, and "They" could make more. Since most of it, is as you said are low tech devices. Now, as for just using a Dropship to do the same type of mission. Spaceships are great at keeping pressure inside the hull. They are not so great, at keeping the pressure out of the same hull. They are only good for going down a few hundred meters or so of water, as far as I know. That does not even count what saltwater can do to the engines that are exposed on our aft."

Jess took in the information, and she was again amazed. That Commander Copeland could think so far out of the box, it was more of a colander for him. "Your right, Sir. The fusion engine would not need fuel, and the additional open space would let you take maybe a few squads of Nighthawks on the mission. They also could take enough food, meds, ammunition, and spare parts to last six months or maybe more in the freed-up space. And I had no idea that dropships could only go down to that depth. So, what is stopping you? If this is such a great idea?"

Robert smiled at Jess. She was accepting that this was a teaching moment, and she was ready to learn what the mission commander had to teach. "It has some risk. What I want you to do, is contact Col Travis. I want to know if she can get one of the vessels fully repaired by the time we leave. I want it certified by a third party, and I want a few reloads for all of the torpedo launchers. Tell her I want to be able to drop it off, and it work for whoever buys it off of "me". If that is not do able? Then we will take our 4.6 million C-Bills, leave and spend it somewhere else. That is a hard and fixed price. I will not go higher than that number."

Jess did not say a word, and she took it all in. Commander Copeland was right. There were a lot of "ifs" in what he said. She agreed to the orders and she went to work seeing what she could do to make them work. She knew that if she failed, her boss would not hold it against her. Copeland understood words like no and I could not make it happen.

She spent the hour working with the mercenary Light Colonel. Robert went back to the paperwork he needed to do, and Jess left the room. She had some work to do, and she felt that some of it was going to be best done face to face. By now, she did not need to let her boss know all of the details of how she was going to try to complete the task she had been given.

The next three days went quickly for everyone. Robert's crew knew they were being watched, but nothing was overtly done to them. On the last full day on the planet. There was another full command meeting for the staff on the ground. Robert felt like something was moving in the background, and it was not going to be good for them. It was time to start looking towards the exit, if it was not to late already.

One of the major surprises on this stop had been from the military liaison office. They had turned over an open sided crate that visibly held what was left of a Corsair class aerofighter. It had been recovered from Xanthe III and was being turned over to them as "rightful" salvage from the incident. It was a wreck, but there was not any way that Copeland's people could turn it down. After all they were a Salvage and Resale company. The Cargo Master had just inspected the hulk and signed were he needed, and it was stored in a cargo bay.

Robert was in his place and when the time was perfect, he started. "I wanted to have one more meeting on our last day. Before we leave this planet at local dawn tomorrow. I wanted to go over our current cargo load out and get everyone on the same sheet of music."

Robert stopped talking to look around the room. "I am happy to say that the Lisbon Maru is within 200 tons of a full load, and that is as of this morning. That is a big difference, then when we came to this world last week. The Mule being only 200tons light, when we launch is an amazing bit of work by the Captains and Cargo Masters."

Jess looked down at her noteputor and cleared her throat. "Sir? That is not an accurate number. I was sent an electronic note just before the meeting. Lt Col Travis will be sending over the Neptune, before noon. The vessel passed the final inspection late last night, and I have the certified copy that said it is good to go. In her words, "Its done and its fully combat ready". It's not pretty and it could use some fresh camouflage paint. She will be sending three complete sets of reloads for the short and long ranged torpedo launchers. They will be within the same packing trailer, and ammunition will push it up to about 150 tons. We will need to get it loaded today."

Robert was all smiles. He had been wondering where Jess had been that had caused her to almost be late for this meeting. "Great job Jess! Make sure we have someone to double check the local paperwork, before you send any money over to them. They are mercenaries after all, and they might try to pull a fast one on us. When it passes, make sure she gets her money and a thank you note with my signature block."

Jess was smiling from the praise and for the attention, and she nodded to her commander. Robert looked over to the senior dropship Captain. "Good! Now for the next Item on our laundry list. We will be going back to the Canopus system of the MC, by the shortest route we can. I notified our jumpship captain, that we will be charging the engines from the reactor and the sail. We will not be Fast Charging. I just want to cut a few days off of each leg on our route, if we can."

Robert stopped talking, as he let that information sink in. When he was getting a lot of strange looks, from the other officers. The only one who did not give him a look, like he had a horn growing out of his forehead, was the Captain of the White Rabbit. He had been in more of the private meetings with the convoy commander, than any of the rest of the other officers for this topic.

Robert decided to let the rest of them in on some of the information. "I have been in contact with some of the different members of the Families. They have set up a deal. One that is real and is of significant value to us, and our people. We are picking up a modified Union class dropship. The one we are picking up, had the mech bays taken out. This we knew about, but what was not covered in the first message was important. It is that the open cargo bays are fully plumbed. It does not have the pressurization or climate control units to carry most types of liquids, but the hard part of the modifications has already been done. After our mission is done. I think that it will be a nice little tanker that can carry tylium, to the rest of the fleet while on long ranged missions."

Robert stopped talking for a second. You had to let stuff like this settle for a little while before you truly understood it. You didn't want to overload someone with too much information, all at one time. "How are we going to pull this off? We will be doing a full "failsafe" protocol. We are going all the way down to, but not firing the scuttling charges. Just like we practiced before our first run. The Captain of the White Rabbit will use the time, after liftoff to make this happen. He will be stripping all Colonial and SLDF data and hardware." Those restricted items were designed to be quickly pulled out and jettisoned in case of an emergency. They knew that the White Rabbit was going to be sold off, if the opportunity arose.

"When we land in Canopus? We will off load all of our gear into a hangar. It has already been set up for us to use but it is being kept under a false name, until we land. When we clear the Union? We will reload all of our gear onto it. The Rabbit's crew will be pressed hard to do this without a lot of support or spending a huge amount of time on the planet's surface. I have authorized him to call on any and all hands to make this happen in a timely manner." He looked around the room. "This should not be a surprise to anyone sitting in this room. It was planned all along to be able to do something like this. It just sucks that we will now have to do this, while we have a full load of cargo to deal with."

The meeting went on for only about half an hour more. They needed to work out some details, but everyone wanted to make the most of their last day on the regional capital world. The three ships were very busy as they got ready to spend a lot of time away from anyone. The route posted to the local traffic control, was not anywhere near what Commander Copeland had planned to take in real life. The route they would be using had systems that had no one living in them anymore or had never been occupied in the first place. It was risky, but it also was safe in most ways to use lifeless systems to travel threw.

The trip from ground to orbit was normal, and even the trip out to the jump point was restful for most of the crew on the three ships. When they docked with their way out of this system, things now were not normal. They had done their checks on the dropships, and when they approached the long Tramp class? They had checked her out. It was just what they did when they left every system on the last two runs to the inner sphere.

Robert was in his office aboard the Styx, and he was not a happy fleet commander. All of the ship's Captains were in the room with the Convoy commander. In the center of the room on the briefing table were the objects of his unhappiness. It was kept in place due to the gravity deck turning around them. The massive hamster wheel was going in order to keep their cover intact. Robert looked around the room.

"75? 75! Radio trackers were on my ships! They were on every ship! So, it was not a lapse of one, it was a lapse on all of us!" Robert was so upset, that he was sweating. He was getting tired of these items showing up on his ships. On this trip they had stopped most of them at the cargo hatch, but for some reason that method had failed. "What do we know about this bunch?"

The Captain of the Lisbon Maru stepped forward. "Sir. My crew have been checking out each one we have found, so far. What we know, is that we have seen these before. We found them in the ComStar connected items on the last major supply run. We even know how this group works. They are pinged by a radio burst at the right pulse rate, and then they ping back. All someone needs to do? Is keep pinging them, and they will talk back to the sender. They do not store any data, and they are limited to speed of light transmissions." The young captain had been upset about the numbers of the things found, but he could not fully understand why the Commander looked like he was about to have a stroke or something. "We can dump them out an airlock before we jump, and we will not need to worry about them anymore. Until we land on Canopus, and I will bet that we will pick up more of them. We have a plan that works on how to deal with them."

Robert did not say anything for a few minutes. It was a long enough pause. That the Captains in the room were starting to get worried. He still was not "looking at them", when he came out of his little trance. "No. Not this time. I want that lead lined container for carrying radioactive metals. I want these." Robert pointed to the pile of very expensive electronics on the table. "And I want any others that are found to be put in the same container. That should keep the radio waves away for them for a while."

He stopped talking and his lips were turned down in deep thought and stayed that way for some time. Now the other members of the meeting were really starting to sweat. Their boss was up to something, they could feel it deep in their bones. Robert's head came up a minute or so later. "Thank you all, for bringing these to me. After each jump. I want a full scan of each ship, just in case we missed any of these little devices. If any more are found? I want them put in the same box as the rest of them. I need something made out of ships stores. What I want is a box that will block any and all radio signals. If my idea is not due able? I need to know. If it is workable, then have one big enough made over in one of the machine shops."

He gave a curt nod to the group, which they took as the command to clear out. Not one of the officers stuck around, not even Jess. They could tell that the Fleet commander was mad enough to win an arm-wrestling match with an Atlas. Most of them felt like they had let their boss down by not finding these devices, when the cargos were first brought onto each of the four ships of the convoy. That hurt them more than any "real" punch to the guts.

 **Notes** :

 **Savana Master**. I saw a BMW on display at a local mall the other day, and all I could see was that hovercraft instead of the sedan. Also, who has not thought about Starbuck strapped into one of these things? Yes, I know I am touched in the head. My wife often tells me, much the same.

 **Wolf's Dragoons fire magnet**. In the RPG groups, someone always wants to have some connection going back to the WDs. Sometimes that is not a good thing, Waco Rangers come to mind and a few others.

 **TRO 3026**. Can anyone tell that TRO 3026 is one of my favorite books? See end of first note for this chapter.

 **Armor and small jump jet issues for PA(L).** There has to be a reason that ComStar did not just copy the Nighthawk suits and went with the Tornados.


	34. Chapter 34 20 June 3048

**Chapter 34**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **20 June 3048 the second run**

 **Canopus IV**

It was seven jumps and just under 60 days to make the trip between the two capital worlds. Robert had all three dropships disconnect from the Styx and make the burn towards the planet. The trip out from FWL space had been uneventful, with the Styx not picking up anyone on its powerful Radar. They also did not find any more trackers, and they looked very hard to find any more of the little devices. They looked hard after every jump. Still they did not find anything, after they had made the second jump after finding the first batch. The total number of tracking devices had climbed to 123 after they did that first jump.

The last jump was delayed for four days, the one that brought them to this system. The four days had been by a request forwarded by all of the Cargo Masters. Each of the old salts had gone over the Trojan class blockade runner during the run. They wanted to do one more search to make sure that nothing might have been hidden, and then forgotten about. They had not found anything after two days. The four older spacers had not been happy with that result. So, they spent the next two days going through the ship again. This time they found a few odds and ends, but nothing major or that would break "The Protocols". When all of the Cargo Masters agreed that the dropship was good to go for the next phase. Robert had given the order to prepare for the next jump.

There was not any issue at the jump point or on the burn towards the capital of the MC. Jess and the other Captains were given the mission of taking care of this next phase of the operations. Robert, it seemed, had other tasks that he wanted to get done. He did not want any help, with whatever he was doing.

The crews first had to unload the almost fully loaded cargo ship. On the trip out to this part of space, they had already transferred certain items to the Lisbon Maru. That had happened while they were recharging the jumpship between stars. When the reactor had used up all of the fuel on the larger jumpship? Some fuel had been transferred from the other dropships to the old Tramp for her to use to charge the massive engine.

All of the hardware and software that was on the old blockade runner now? All were the "normal" items you would expect on a ship like that. As stuff was unloaded from the dropship, it was moved to a nearby warehouse. The warehouse would not only be the cargo storage area, but it was also the living quarters for the dropship's crew. The last items to come off of the old ship. It was the removable cabins that the infantry squad used, as well as the skeleton crews from the first part of the mission. The crews liked it for the week that they had planned to be on this planet. They had lots of elbow room and fresh air.

The Dropship's software was reset back to default, to wipe out any data that might be hidden or lost in the computers. When that was done? The local inspectors descended on the dropship like a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat. The White Rabbit was being sold to the local Government, and they would not take the word of some third-party inspectors. It took two days, and they had the run of the emptied dropship. The only time that Robert was around? It was when it was time to turn over the "keys" and get paid. He was running around the city and drop port doing who knows what. He was only accompanied by his escort for the majority of those "meetings". With full cargo bays the only job the Cargo Masters had, was to keep telling people no on whatever it was that they were selling.

After that new money hit the bank? Kimberly showed up with four other older people, which she did not bother to introduce to Jess. They seemed to know Robert or knew enough about him, that they could be friendly. They were members of the Family that had been close by or had been able to make it to this planet, in time to meet with someone from home. The fingers of an information network were slowly growing as Kimberly, Sophie and Lora went about their job.

Robert, Jess, the old captain of the White Rabbit and about a dozen crewmembers took three large hover people movers the next day. They had to go to the other side of the drop port. It was to the long-term storage area. The ship they were going to check out, was on the other edge of that area. It was the area that was where dropships were one step away from being cut up for scrap or used for some target practice.

When the transports had stopped, everyone emptied out. Robert and Jess remained standing near the vans but watching as their people entered the ship. Jess turned and looked at the other woman. "How did you find this?"

Kimberly Jay turned and gave the other woman a kind of half smile. "I had been talking with Commander Copeland, and he made a comment that stuck in my head. He had worried, that he might not have enough firepower to get out of a bad situation. I had been looking, but I was not finding anything better than the Trojan you all were working with. When news broke about the pirates you beat off? I had people coming to me, instead of me tracking down a dozen ethereal leads that turned out to be a waste of time and money. That was when this turned up." She pointed at the rounded egg-shaped converted military dropship.

Robert was still and then added his own information. "I was thinking about maybe a converted or upgraded Mule, or something like that. I was not even thinking about something like this." He looked at Kimberly and gave her an approving nod. "Were we come from, that is a purely military ship, and too valuable to use in other ways besides its core designed function."

Kimberly licked her lips, and then bit down on her lower lip. It was like she was fighting back the urge to say something. What it did was draw both Jess and Robert's eyes to her. Robert tilted his head and gave her a look, which she did not pick up on right away. Jess broke the silence.

"Kimberly, if you have something you would like to add? Just come on out with it. We won't bite your head off." Jess said the last part with a soft chuckle.

Kimberly was not buying it, and then she relented with a shrug. "I have been working on something on the side. Lora let me know about your first run. You listed that you wanted to buy a larger dropship, and that they did not need to be fully functional. I found one. But you already had three dropships, and the Tramp only can lift three ships? I didn't know if you were still looking for them or not. But I found something about six months ago. I didn't want to bring it up or put too much effort into it. Not if you were now not looking for something like it." Kimberly's SAFE's job was tracking weapons sells between the FWL and any border states. This had given her a large list of contacts that she could get away with for a limited amount of personal use.

Robert let his eyebrows go up a little. "What did you find? And yes, finding a large dropship is important to us. It also does not have to be fully functional. What they need to be? They need to be structurally sound, the life support work, and have a power distribution system that can be quickly repaired. That is what our "Partners" want, for some unknown reason".

Now it was Kimberly's turn to let her eyebrows go up. "Well, don't say I didn't warn you." Kimberly was about to levitate out of her boots.

She was still not sure if she wanted to bring it up, and then relented. "In this system. I found an old Behemoth class dropship. It's in a close orbit near the jump point you came in on. The history on the bird is a bit on the thin side. About the only things I do know, is that the engines gave out. That is why it was left in this system a decade ago. All the cargo has been pulled out, along with all of the twenty-assigned small craft. The hull is okay, but only just. It's thinner in some places than it should be, but the hull is sound. It was last inspected about two years ago."

The Behemoth class dropship was a truly massive design. It was a 100,000ton bulk cargo transport, which was so big. That they were built and lived their entire lives only in space. They could not land or take flight under the pull of a normal planet, or even from some larger asteroids. They were so massive. That they alone, almost massed as much as a Merchant class jumpship. The engines took a lot of work and massed almost as much as three of the Union class dropships that he was looking at now. They also could carry over 74,000tons of whatever you wanted to, from one star to another. Robert had a plan to move something like this, maybe not as big, but he had a plan that he had worked out while they were still working the first mission. It was just too bad that they had not been able to practice "the plan"… ever. Everyone knows about the plans of mice and men.

Robert nodded as he went over the base plan in his head again, before saying anything. "Okay Kimberly. What's the catch?"

Now Kimberly smiled at both of them. "The catch is, that the seller is a jerk. She kept the list price at 640 million C-bills. No matter how many times it has been brought up that it's not worth near that much. She will not come down off of the price, not one C-bill."

Jess's eyebrows went into her hairline, but she held her tongue. She only looked between the woman and her commander with wide eyes. The SLDF Navy had given them two jumpships and two dropships, to sell to give them the capital to purchase items along with selling the old SLDF cannons. The number that Kimberly had just said? It was almost more than they had left in the banks. If they used all of the money in those accounts, they would have some explaining to do. It would be a huge problem recharging those accounts by any major level, after it was gone.

Robert had kept his face like stone, and with an even tone. "Kimberly? That is a very healthy number, and one I will not pay. Even if I had access to that kind of money."

Kimberly had a sly smile and a twinkle in her eyes. "Lora and I would not let you buy, that hunk of junk for anything like that price. If you did? I would make sure that I had in writing. Something to the effect, that I didn't think it was a good value. Now what I was wondering. Is if you wanted to spend some of that thick stack of political credit, that you have made with the MC and her military?"

Kimberly Jay pulled out a portable phone and waved it in the air like a snack treat for a large and mean dog. The person that own this dropship had been a real piece of work, which she had to work with in her roll in SAFE. She had spent many a day wishing that they could just shoot the other woman and do the universe a massive favor.

Robert gave a shark like smile and nodded to the communication device. They spent the next two hours on the device talking to many different people. By the end of the calls. The massive dropship belonged not to one of the local banks, but to Commander Copeland. It would take two days for all of the paperwork to finally catch up to the new reality, but it was done.

When the last page was filed. Copeland's accounts were lowered by a little over 150 million C-bills. The MC did not get most of the money that left his accounts. But they would be getting rid of a space navigation hazard, and a nice chunk of currency was added to the General Fund. That was not the only large chunk of money that Robert had dropped in this planet's economy on this trip.

The Union was in a lot better shape, than it looked from the outside. It would be able to lift with very minimal work needing to be done. The Union was the base that the Trojan Class had started from. So, the White Rabbit's crews would not have that many problems learning how to work the new ship. When the paperwork was done for that ship. She went from Union Class Dropship Number 456, to the White Rabbit 2.

That night, at dinner, in the warehouse. Jess asked the question that had been bothering her ever since Commander Copeland had agreed to buy the largest class of dropship ever made by the hand of man. "Sir? So how are we going to get four dropships home, when we can only carry three? I know you have a plan, but I'm at a loss of how to do this." She was not going to let out of the bag at the Carrier could make its own interstellar jumps. Besides they still had to get out of the Inner Sphere occupied space before that ship could move on its own.

Robert told her his plan between mouthfuls of food, which had come off a food truck setup outside the warehouse to feed all of his people. It took about twenty minutes to go over the main plan, and two of the modifications to the main plan that he had worked out already. The other two plans were in case something when wrong during the move.

Jess was smiling. "I have got to start thinking farther out of the box, sir. That will also let us keep the two-small craft you picked up." Jess saw that Robert was getting ready to leave again, so Jess tried to get some more answers from her commander. "So, Commander. Why did you want to get that information about that Solaris team?"

Robert stopped in mid standing from the table and gave her a sly smile. "You will see. Right now, I have to go send some HPG messages. I will see you later. Remember we have that meeting with Kimberly about her primary mission." With a nod. He was moving away from the table, with a little something in his walk.

Robert was reviewing the data that Kimberly, Sophie and Lora had been able to gather. The group of Family women had no idea why he wanted data on a certain family, but they had done so. They also had gotten the latest copy of the ComStar release of Technical Readout 2750. He had already reviewed it and found more than a few holes in the data. He was betting that SLIC would find even more holes after they had seen the data. It did show that more and more Regular Star League Military weapons and technology were finding its way into use, if not back into some level of production. Kimberly had reviewed most of the data that they had gathered with Jess. There just was so much of it, that they did not have time. Kimberly had to keep her cover and too much contact would alert SAFE, that they had double agents in their organization. It was a fine line that she and Copeland were going to have to walk.

Now that Robert had some time, he popped in the data disk that was only labeled Ngo. He read the cover sheets and the bios for each of the living members of that family directly related to the one target. It was not enjoyable reading and before he had to grab some coffee, he pulled up the file of images that had been acquired. When he hit image number 15, he stopped. His hand was shaking as he enlarged one section of the image. He knew that face, and it was a face that should not be in the Inner Sphere. He went through a dozen more images, and he found three more images of faces that should not be. They were Cylons and they were in the Inner Sphere. Robert pulled out the data disk and returned it to his safe. Then he opened a bottle of something he did not even look at the label of. He would not so slowly get drunk and pass out in his bed.

The next two days were busy. The Union was cleaned up, and cargos and crews started to slowly shift over to their new homes. That is after they did a little test flight to high orbit, and then returning to the more active part of the drop port. One that also was nearer to where Copeland's people were staying. Robert had contacted several shipping companies, and now that 100k in c-bills had been paid to a Merchant class jumpship, the Behemoth would be leaving this star system.

It did not take long for a second dropship to be found that wanted to go to the same general location, and the small jumpship made even more money on the route they had already been paid to run. The two small craft took off and did a high speed burned toward the jump point. After refueling one last time at the station at the jump point. They would attach themselves to the side of the giant egg, and act as low powered tugs. The dropship had to be refilled with tons of fuel to help keep the tanks and the hull from being damaged at the jump point. It was only a little over 50 tons of fuel and air, a lot lower than the 600 tons it was designed to carry normally. They just needed enough to do the job and buying that much fuel and air at the jump point, would have been a huge budget hit.

The jumpship would be dropping off both dropships and the two-small craft at the Ltzehoe system. The best and most cost-effective use of the trip? It would have been to fill the over 70,000 tons of cargo bays with anything, even industrial sand would have been better than an empty ship. Robert did not have the time, money, or crew to do something like this. The massive ship was almost totally emptied. When they got to Duke Terry's system? The two craft would stay attached on the outside of the massive dropship like a pair of ticks on a dog. It was going to be hard on the crews, but Robert had no problem getting volunteers to take the mission. They would have the ship spinning fast enough to give them about a quarter G.

Robert made plans and contacted the offices of MMM on Dunianshire and published a space travel plan. The massive dropship was not the only items shipped out by Robert, but it was by far the biggest. At least it was the biggest, that anyone person and even group had sent out that way in a very long time. Robert had cashed in a lot of political capital, and he had to spend almost a week after the Behemoth left paying for it.

That payment was made in dinners, balls, and meetings with various locals in positions of power. It was the longest week of Robert's life. With his flight plans posted for his company. He could put a hard date when he was leaving this system. Robert made sure that he left on the minute that it was announced. Jess and the rest of the leadership was concerned that the Commander was being so adamant to stick to the published timeline. Robert just smiled as he sent reply after reply that he could not attend a given meeting, ball or dinner, because he needed to lift off at a certain time. Two rocks, one stone.

 **Return to Ragnar Anchorage.**

It was dark in the areas between the stars. Then in a flash that was barely detectable, a very small ship was there. The slab-sided craft was quickly lost in the background of stars and interstellar energy. It would not move for some time. It was a lightly armed scout and it was deep into enemy controlled space. The longer it was quiet, the larger area that it could see and the harder it was for any enemy to see them.

From the front of the craft, all you could see was one copper suited person with a gold face plate covering their face from a copper colored helmet. The team had been around for some time, and they did not need to talk as they worked. Any type of transmission, even ones done by hard line, was a risk. The pilot looked down at the consoles and saw a blinking green light. That was all the EO in the back needed to "say", to let the pilot know it was okay to start the next phase of the mission. If he had detected any threat, he would have been more active in his alerting.

All around the black craft small jets activated and the craft slowly moved, but not enough to be seen against the background stars. When the craft was pointed in the right direction, a fraction of power was supplied to the high mounted main engines. With just a little push the craft was starting a six-hour trip to the target of today's scouting missions. It was a blue/grey gas giant that the Colonials and Cylons knew very well. They had fought a battle near it, and it was one that the humans had gotten the better of the Cylon battle fleet.

 **6 hours later**

The small craft glided around the massive planet. After arriving in this location, and it was deemed safe, the jump engine was shut down to save fuel. Now that they were closer to a possible ambush, it was brought back online. A SLDF jump fighter could have done this job. It was both more heavily armored and armored, but it did not have the scouting equipment that a Raptor was built with and the crew trained in how to use it. At this thought the pilot looked out of the right side of the craft. Under that wing was what was called a second-generation Beagle probe. It was in passive mode, but soon it was going to be getting power to use its full capability.

The EO sitting behind the pilot was tired, but everything seemed to be going okay. They had tracked some wreckage at hour number 4, but it was light and moving away from the planet. He did not need the computer to tell him that it was the remains of Vipers and Raiders from the last battle in this area. They had not seen anything on their systems, but their systems could not penetrate more than a dozen meters into the nearby gas giant. That was one of the reasons to hide it here in the first place. He kept the pilot on track for "The Tunnel" by slight adjustments to an indicator on her dash. When they were close, he felt it was worth the risk to use one of the craft's systems.

"Lips, Tunnel is 30 degrees down and 1200 meters ahead. Scopes are clear."

Nora "Lips" Clellan looked toward the directions she had been given. It didn't look any different from any other part of the planet in front of her. But the information and location had been pulled right from the Flagships databanks. There was not any reason to believe that it was wrong, or things had changed. The Tunnel had been there since before the 1st Cylon War.

She adjusted her course and the Raptor responded to her commands. The craft flew as directed, while still maintaining full stealth mode. After it punched threw a thin outer layer of dull blue clouds, they were in the lightening illuminated tunnel. Crank did not say anything more, and just before the first turn in the mapped tunnel. Crank powered up the SLDF made scouting system.

Nora was not surprised when it did not add that much to the information coming into her stations. It was going to be another hour of flying. For an hour they were sitting on the edge of their seats, thinking that a Cylon ambush was waiting behind every pillar of clouds that lined the edges of the tunnel. The ripple firing of powerful lightning bolts and the planet's ability to render DRADIS and any other sensor gear ineffective, did not help with their nerves.

 **7 hours after arrival in system.**

Lips was a little surprised, when a screen near her left knee changed from static filled nothing into an outline of a triple stack of dinner plates with a pipe attached at the bottom. Maybe that Beagle probe was worth the mass. When they made the last turn, she could see her target. It was the Ragnar Anchorage, and the three great decks were still slowly turning as she watched. Lips did not smile, but so far, they had not found any Cylons. Part of her brain told her it was because this place was known to badly affect them at the cellular level.

As Lips flew first over and then around the station, she was not impressed by what she saw. She had not been able to see it, on the last visit the Battlestar Galactica had made here. One part of her hoped that it had looked better back then. Her eyes kept being drawn to the top "dinner plate" that held the Battlestar docking point. One of the six sections looked….unfinished. The voice of her EO brought her back to the rest of the world, as she was looking at the half-finished section.

"Lips, it looks clean. There is still some power, and it is almost a perfect match from what the Bucket recorded, when she left with the rest of the Rag Tag fleet. I know the guys back here are ready to get some elbow room."

Lips could not help but turn and look to see deeper into the back of her craft. Being just as quiet as the two Raptor's crew had been were 6 large SLDF marines in full battle rattle. The only items that were not SLDF issue, were the Colonial made space suits they were wearing. "Well let's see if anyone is home." She put words into actions, and the nose of the craft dropped. She did a haircut pass over the top plate of a station. She landed at a Raptor port at the intersection of the bottom plate and the power and support structure at the base of the station.

The Battlestar had attached to the top of the station on her only visit here, and they had found a human form Cylon waiting on them. Lips was not wanting to find any surprises, which they might have left for any returning humans. When she attached to the lower dock, you could not have felt the connection on the small craft much less on the larger station. When the hatch opened the small squad started to exit, just like they had been trained to do back on New Circe.

Lips could not help herself. "Don't forget where we parked. And if you bring any company back with you. I will leave all of you Frakers here."

Lips had to smile as the last huge marine paused at the hatch only long enough, to give her a single finger salute. If the group did not return in two hours or any Cylons were detected by the Raptor. They would be left behind to maybe die alone, and every one of them knew it before they had signed on to do this mission.

At 1 hour and 45 minutes, Lips and Crank were getting more on edge as the time past. One of them would only be 5 to 10 meters from the hatch that connected the station to the Raptor at any one time. When they heard steps coming their way. Lips had jumped into her pilot's seat. Crank had pulled his Laser pistol from his holster, and he waited to see if he was going to kill a Cylon with the new weapon or not.

Much to his relief, it was most of the boarding team. They were not running, but they were checking every corridor they passed at the very fast walking pace. The point man flipped up his helmet and his laser rifle was pointed to the corridor ceiling, when he was a dozen meters from the hatch. "Clear so far. I left a 2-man team at a major intersection down the way. Let's download, and you can get the other team. This place is Fraking huge!"

Crank nodded and then went to help the rest of them unload supplies. The reason that the Raptor could only pack in 6 marines, was that the rest of the space was needed for emergency supplies. After the supplies were unloaded, both the Raptor and the combat team were not out of the woods. The now 4-man team would wait for any returning human craft. The Raptor would still have to leave the station, make it down the Tunnel, and then wait for at least 10 minutes, before it could exit the tunnel, and make it back to the mother ship. If they saw any Cylons along the way? The mission was blown, and it was all over but the dying.

They did not see any Cylons, and every 4 hours another 6-man team and supplies were landed at the base of Ragnar station. As each group landed, a more detailed sweep could be made by the growing number of personnel. They were taking their time, so that no one or nothing could slip in behind the slowly growing number of clearing teams.

 **24 hours after first breach of Ragnar Tunnel.**

For the first time in who knew how long, a Colonial civilian ship arrived at the tunnel mouth of Ragnar. She was still a civilian ship design, but now she was armed if not armored as a warship. The Boreas was an old Rising Star class liner that had seen better days, even before the Cylons had renewed the war. The SLDF and Colonial Navy had taken her in hand and done some work on her. They could not do anything about her armor or lack of armor skin. They did add a dozen laser anti-missile systems on the top and bottom of her hull. She also was now packing 4 Raptors, 2 Kirghiz class jump fighters, and 2 Avars light fighters. This had reduced her twin vent like hanger bays from being able to carry 8 large shuttles, down to one medium sized cargo hauler for this mission.

Captain Peter "Moa" Phipps was looking out the command windows of his lady, as they made it around the last turn of the tunnel. Now he could see the open pocket that would be his base of operations for the next few months. "Looks just like it did, when I left it the last time." He could not help himself and the words just fell out. Luckily only his XO heard them.

Senior Lt Aamodt could not help but smile at the munchkins comment. "Yea, it looks like a hunk of junk. But at least the Cylons did not blow it out of orbit. Can I launch the shuttle?"

Captain Phipps was thinking about his next set of moves. He should be able to attach to a secondary docking clamp, but he did not know if that was safe. They had 200 repair and other specialty skills people still on his ship. The shuttle would take them over at two dozen at a time. They also still had another 100 security personnel to help clear the place of any traps or hidden Cylons. "We will stay in close orbit. Launch the shuttle and keep it making runs between us and the station. We stick to the plan, unless something changes."

Just as Captain Phipps was sitting in his office doing paperwork, his desk alert beeped and then a voice came over the speaker. "Sir, one of the EOD teams has found another device. It was on the Battlestar hatch on the north pole of the station. They report all corridors, major command or support areas are now clear. They are starting a detailed room by room search of the base as we speak."

The Captain looked at his desk mounted clock. "Good, let them know I will be over there at the start of my next shift." He had a lot of paperwork to do, but it was less now that he did not have to worry about 1,800 passengers and 320 crew. Still he had over 700 bodies to look after, and that meant he had to do some paperwork.

 **The next day**

Peter was walking around the metal corridors of his "New" base. He was being escorted by Ragnar's new Chief of Engineering and 4 armed bodyguards. He was distracted from the briefing, by a small shower of rusty metal coming from the ceiling of the corridor. The head of Engineering noticed the look and the short shower of rust.

"She needs a lot of work, but it's nothing we can't fix with enough bodies, and supplies. The fuel tanks are almost at the same level, that was reported after the last ship topped off before bugging out. They are just under a third full, and that was where we found the first demo charge. It was the end point for about 80 percent of the traps we found so far. We have not found that one Cylon the Admiral left behind. That alone kind of confirms that they did return, at least for some time. My head EOD chief said that 40 people could set up the number of charges, that we have found in around two or three hours if they knew what they were doing."

The Captain nodded his head. "That make sense, we know that the radiation will kill them. Besides the fuel, what supplies were left behind?" The plan was set up, under the idea that the station was going to be totally stripped by the Cylons. If it was knocked out of orbit? SLiE would put a ship inside this area, and they would run operations out of it. They were already ahead of the game, with there being enough fuel to refill every ship in the rag tag fleet one more time. Then they would need to start worrying about fuel for their starships.

"We were told that a half dozen type D warheads were left behind. We have not found them, but we have found enough of the 30 and 50 mm KEWs rounds to refill the Pegasus three times over. We have a few hundred anti vipers' missiles in the C loading deck." He made a sour face. "We have found tons and tons of survival rations that say they are still good to eat, but I'm not willing to try them. We are finding stuff just thrown around. And I will not let anyone open a crate, until after someone from the EOD teams had cleared it. We have found four traps that way, on boxes saying that they were anti-radiation meds. We are still going through the station's different compartments. She is still pulling enough hydrocarbons and oxygen from the planet to run the generators, but only just. The rest are rusted crap."

As he was talking more, and brighter lights came on around them. Peter Phipps looked over at the SLiE Navy and Colonial trained Engineer. R C Davis was also looking at the new lights, he did not need to see the look to know that Captain Phipps wanted to know what had just happened. "That was quick. That should be one of those lightweight old Ford 120 fusion generators, which they had pulled from some old Thorns. That will be supplying the power for this deck, and it will be a backup if we lose main power. As soon as the artificial gravity deck plating is checked out, we can stop this damn spinning. Each of the three support decks will have its own Ford plant. The plan is to get all three online, before we put those big frakers in the old generator room."

Phipps could not help but smile as for the first-time, this area now was not in half gloom. That just showed how much the station had waisted away. "What about life support, live ability, and the jump engine?"

The engineer stopped walking and looked to the captain. "Sir, this station was never designed for long term living. The Life support is limited to air, water, and fuel to run the generators and station keeping OMS. There is a total of 6 fraking latrines and 1 emergency shower, on the whole fraking thing. We are going to need Boreas for a while longer. The jump engines are a total loss. I would bet that they used some Tugs to move her here, from whatever junk yard they found her in."

"Well Frak. I was worried about the living conditions, when it turned out that no one had a copy of the schematics. Looks like we will have to breakout the Wolverine field camp and MASH truck. I want them set up in one of the 5 airtight sections on A Deck."

A deck was the topmost of the massive rings that made up the station. It also was the closest to the docking point for major warships, and it was the one that the Battlestar Galactica had used on her one and only trip into this area. The captain looked around the area. "Well it looks like we have a lot to do, to get this fraking thing ready for its next mission."

The Engineer jump about a meter off the deck, when a leg fell through the ceiling not far from them. "I just hope that the Cylons don't come looking for us."

Captain Phipps laughed and the other man shot him a look, which showed he was worried about the senior officer's sanity. After a few seconds he stopped laughing. "I would not worry too much about them, right now. If things are even going close to the plans that I was briefed on. The Cylons are more worried about the Zug and her escorts, than an old rusty station that they booby trapped nine ways from Sunday."

 **Notes** :

 **Kimberly Jay's new office.** It would not take much to convince SAFE that they needed someone on Canopus. If only to keep an eye on the sudden increase in Star League grade weapons coming from that political unit.

 **Ragnar Station or anchorage**. It looked like it was on its last legs in the show. But it would make a nice base to operate out of, as long as the Cylons think that it is still empty.


	35. Chapter 35 30 Sept 3048

**Chapter 35**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **30 Sept 3048**

 **Dunianshire close orbit pirate point**

Adept Lee Angeni was breathing very hard, as he and the dropship that was carrying him, made a high G burn from the pirate point to the target that was showing up on his tracking device. There were three dropships in the attack force that the Adept belong to. There was an aerodyne Condor with 18 light tanks and a dozen highly trained infantry platoons. The second dropship was an almost 9000 ton fully upgraded Triumph class Aerodyne dropship. The big hitter and Adepts Lee Angeni's command ship? It was a rare Fortress class dropship that had been upgraded with late Star League weapons, sometime before the fall of the old Star League. This was a lot of firepower, but one that was felt was merited for this mission. This was due to what higher command knew, what the target had done before to very capable assets that reported to ROM. This was not meant to be a fare fight. It was to be an execution of a group that had proven to be a little too troublesome for ComStar as a whole and ROM in particular.

The attack force was made up of all Com Guards personnel that had been assigned to ROM, both on the ground and in the air around the dropships. The equipment was all generic in make and model. They also were all painted in a pattern that was connected to a known local pirate group. The only real advantage his unit had over the locals? It was that each unit, be it a tank or mech. All had at least one late Star League era bit of weapons technology to use. The downside? It was that anyone that died on this mission, to teach this up and coming merchant company, would be known as nothing more than a bunch of pirates by the locals. The families back home would just get a message from ComStar, that their family member had died in the service of ComStar and some made up cover story about how they had died. It would not be the first time for this to happen to a member of this unit or one of the units like it spread out across the length and breadth of the Inner Sphere. The attack on NAIS, being also on this scale by a unit similar to today's operation.

Adept Angeni was looking at the trackers on his side mounted display. They were all located in one general area of the planet, but in two different locations. This location had been chosen for the attack, because all three dropships were known to land and to trade on this planet many times in the past. With the only two areas giving off location beacon signals, maybe only two of the targeted dropships had touched down on this planet. If they stuck to their updated SOP, that the ROM had paid to get a pair of copies of? It would be the command dropship and the Leopard CV as an escort, if only one ship was needed on a planet. Sometimes the full cargo ship would stay at the jump point. The last report did say that they were turning down any and all items for sale, so the cargo carrier could be still at the jump point filled with cargo.

That adherence to a predictable SOP would be there undoing. He had no idea what was planned for the Tramp class, that carried the troublemakers to this system, and he did not care. What he did not know, was that nothing was planned to happen to the Tramp class ship called the Styx. Higher command hoped that they would be able to track it easier, if the command team was cut down and the jumpship was left on its own.

A dozen hours after jumping into the system. All three attacking dropships were on the ground and troops were rushing off of them or had been dropped out of the mech doors before touching down. Now that they were closer, they could tell that one of the two target areas held two targets and not one. Adept Angeni had smiled when they were still an hour out and this new information had come in. He had quickly re-sent the primary battle plan to all of his officers. He would be able to take out all three of the threat dropships. That would be a nice boon for his career

The two prime targets were in a covered building like a warehouse, and the other larger target was in an open pit like area almost 2kms away. Adept Angeni thought that one pit must be hiding the Mule class dropship. The Leopard and newly acquired Union cargo ship must be behind the large sliding doors of the building ahead of the main attack force. This facility was just large enough to cover a ship of that size. That was why there were only two separate locations given back signals to his specialized equipment in his mech. The light tanks were deploying, to keep the local militia and corporate security troops from getting in the way of Blake's wrath.

Adept Angeni used the mech hands with three other members of his Level II, and the four of them ripped the doors of the warehouse open. The other two members of this level II were in a pair of HBK-4G's Hunchbacks. They rushed into the forced opening as soon as the opening was wide enough, their massive autocannons would be extremely deadly in the confined areas of the building. The two Hunchbacks stopped 20 feet into the building like they had hit a brick wall. They were joined by the rest of the command Level II mechs, as soon as they had let go of the massive hangar doors. The supporting heavy tanks were coming as quickly as they could behind the command unit.

As soon as the Adept had entered the warehouse/hangar, and his sensors were clear of the blocking caused by the metal of the building. He could feel something was wrong. There was a single dropship in the hangar. Instead of a well-maintained Leopard class CV with rounded lines? He saw a very battle damaged mech carrier that looked to have more holes than complete craft. That was not right for the target of the raid. And the second dropship was missing totally. He was still getting two alert areas on his system, one on each side of the massive building. Only there was nothing in those locations that his Mech could pick up.

The Adept was frozen in this spot of ferro-concrete. Something was wrong, and the lack of first-hand combat experience showed when he did not react quicker to the changing situation. He was like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming high-speed hover cargo truck. He only reacted, when the motion alarm went off saying something was behind him. It was not an enemy unit, but his heavy tank support was about to enter the hangar.

That 30 second window of him watching his heavy tanks deploy into the hangar, was his death knell. Heavy weapons fire started coming in from three directions all at once. Laser, PPC, Autocannon, and missiles started impacting all around his mech and the rest of his command. His radio was screaming at him at the same time that the weapons fire impacted into his mech. The ComStar unit going after the nearby large subsurface launch pit was also taking a lot of heavy fire. He was already losing personnel by the heartbeat, and it was only going to get worse as time went on.

Adept Angeni tried to keep his voice calm, but it came over the air waves as forced, and that did not help with the situation. "All units pull back to the ships. We are blown. Tanks pull back 400 meters, and then provide cover for the mechs. Team two, pull back as best you can. When you're outside the pit? We will add your forces to commands and help with the leapfrogging back to our rides." It was a plan. But was it a good plan?

The Adept started using his Grand Dragon to fire at the weapons flashes to his front. He was slowly walking backwards as he tried to take out whoever was firing at him. By the time that the mechs had pulled out of the hangar? Both of the short-ranged modified Hunchbacks were down, and not moving. What he did not know, was that the real firepower? It was waiting for them outside of the hard to replace dropship construction and repair hangar. All of the MMM security was at the drop port tonight, and they were pouring fire into the now fully exposed attack force.

Adept Angeni had been in a simulation, almost exactly like this one during the training for this mission. It did not take him long to know what to do, to get his unit out of this debacle. The enemy he was facing, according to the data coming from the rest of the unit, was a mix force. They were mostly made up of 75ton Marauders and 55ton Shadow Hawks. Most of his unit was out massed and outgunned by the firepower coming at them. He needed speed to win this battle. "All units fall back to the dropship at your best speed, this is a trap!" Angeni had realized that a leapfrog retreat was only going to keep them exposed to enemy fire longer.

The ComStar commander was about to add some more direction, to maybe bring order out of chaos that his attack had fallen into. Then a twin pair of class ten autocannon rounds fired from a pair of hidden Urbamechs found his cockpit, before he could. He was dead before the mech hit the ground. Without any leadership the attack force fell back, as best they could. Retreat under fire, is one of the top five hardest maneuvers to live through. Without an experience leader to help with the rough spots? It was impossible.

When the Grand Dragon fell, it almost was like a signal had been sent out to this planet's defenders. A lance of ER PPC packing Clints came charging out of the landing pit backed up by two lances of SRM spraying Wasps. LTV-4's, Hezers, and Vedette tanks fell under their firepower or kicks from the speeding mechs. The Manticores and Bulldogs type heavy tanks were harder to bring down. The Shadow Hawks went to double rate fire and the heavy guns ran into the teeth of enemy fire. The Heavy mechs responded with PPC, ER PPC's, and double rate cannon fire. Now that the enemy was in the open, the defenders were less worried about damaging the infrastructure. They only had to ride the rising heat caused by their weapons, and the heat caused by the defender's weapons. Now ComStar knew how badly they were outnumbered by the local defenders.

The updated heavy mechs were taking out any mech that was in range of them. They also were to make sure any fast machine was slowed down enough for the slower mechs to handle later. The Shadow hawks would pore fire into the now slower light weight mechs until they stopped moving. That worked will with the light mechs like the Bugs and Jenners. The pair of Black Jacks took longer to bring down. The only speed bump had been the mixed lance of Warhammers and Thunderbolts. This heavy metal slowed the closing rate of the Security mechs onto the fleeing ComStar unit. This delay was used to the invaders advantage.

The enemy battle line looked to be holding when a demon rose out of one of the dropships support tunnels. The massive machine was behind the enemy battle line. The enemy machines were throwing bolts of purple plasma in the form of PPC blast at the planet's defenders. The great machine was not the stealthiest mech ever made. Its designer had wanted a mech that would intimidate anyone on the battlefield, and they had not cared about stealth or being sneaky.

The pilot of the machine could have fired the mech's weapons, but she wanted to do something that she had always wanted to do while she had been waiting in the showroom. The great death headed machine reached out with both hands. Faster than you could blink, the right arm and hand had pulled off the cockpit of the nearest Warhammer. While the right hand was starting to grip the enemy cockpit, the left hand reached out and grabbed the cockpit of a Thunderbolt. In a show of skill, the two cockpits were pulled up and off of their mounts. The left hand was just a little less skilled and the cockpit was smashed into the shoulder mounted long ranged missile launcher before coming off of the mount. When the remaining lance turned to see the two cockpits raised over the Atlas's head in its massive war fist. They broke like glass. Maybe it was the timely bolt of lightning back lighting the scene that helped, or it could have been the pilots cackling laugh coming out of speakers set to 11 that was the final push to get the other two mechs to run.

The three grounded dropships started providing fire support to what remained of the attack force. The single Long Tom was quickly run out of its limited supply of ready ammunition, and it did little to slow down the defender's counterattack. It was not the lightest and fastest of the combat force that had been dropped on the planet. This had given the defenders time to apply their heavy firepower. Not a mech, infantrymen, or heavy tank was among the group that made it under the protective fire of those three upgraded dropships. As quickly as they could, those survivors were loaded on whatever dropship was closest to the combat vehicle. Even before it was safe, the ships were lighting their fires to get away from this planet.

A dozen light and medium aero fighters were not a match for three alert dropships combined firepower. In a few minutes. The three dropships, now a lot lighter, were loaded and burning to orbit at the maximum setting that they could. The three dropships were attacked all along the way to the Invader jumpship, by a rotation of fighters coming up from the planet. But besides some minor to almost major armor damage done to the three heavy combat dropships? There was little doubt that the three dropships would make it to the second most numerous type of jumpship in the whole Inner Sphere. This was not unexpected, not when the heaviest weapon your fighter force is packing is some medium class lasers.

On the ground? They left bodies and wrecked war machines all over the drop port. The unknown attackers were not the only people, who died and left their broken bodies and wrecks around the attack site. Still over 500 dead invaders were left on the fire scored drop port. Whoever had planned this attack, had known down to the hour when to launch the attack. The jump and hard burn to the planet had been timed, so that the attack would have happened in the dead of night with the least amount of natural illumination. It should have worked better for the attackers. But if the defenders were ready? It played into their hands, just like it had done to night. By the time the sun rose over the drop port, all of the fires had been put out or were just smoking remains of the battle.

Mr. McDonogh, the head of MMM on Dunianshire was looking around the area that only a few hours ago was in conflict. He was still folding and unfolding the message in his hand as he looked around the battle-damaged area. The message had come in a few months ago. It had been encoded with MMM codes, and the codes groups that only one group had been given access to. At first? He had not believed it, but the more he thought about the information. The more he realized that he could not risk it being right. He had contacted the right people, but only the ones who he trusted not to talk too much about something very important. He stopped working the paper, when he saw the head of his security force and the head of the militia coming towards him. One part of his brain noticed that the two women did not look as angry as he felt.

McDonogh had made eye contact with the two women who had come-up with this detailed plan to react to the information in his hand. He took a breath and let some of it out, when they were only a few feet away from him. He was trying to read them, as they came up to him in the early morning sun beams. From what he was seeing around him as more bodies were put in body bags, it was not looking good. He knew that he was in an odd position, being male and in charge of women in the MC. Still he was the boss of the largest mech factory on the planet, and that let you be a little different as long as you were very good at your job.

"Ladies great work, but how bad was it? Do you know anything about what happened, yet?" He pointed around to some of the still smoking wrecks.

The head of the MMM Security looked at the other woman, but she was the first to speak. "The attack force was over a battalion in size. They were a mix force of Mech, infantry, light and heavy tanks. They went right to the areas that you said they would." There was a little sound of wonder in her voice, about how her boss was able to find out so much detail about a pending major attack.

Now the militia commander was nodding her head, and when the first statement was still in the air. That was when she can speak and, she would not interrupt. "Your information was spot on, but in two parts. We were not expecting them to be in this large of numbers, and the numbers of advance weapons they used. We paid for not having that information, when these pirates attack my people." The tone had a little bit of sting in it. You always want perfect intelligence, but that was not something the real world gave you outside of holovids and books. This didn't mean that an officer would not be mad that they didn't have it on hand when they made their battle plans.

McDonogh could hear the tone in her voice. She was both proud of her people's performance and mad at each loss they had taken. He had not seen a battlefield, before today, even after all these years of selling war machines. His eyes went wide, as he understood some of the words the militia commander had said. Still it took him a few seconds to understand the words she had just used. "What do you mean, advanced weapons?"

His head of his company's security force was not smiling, but she had a thin-lipped look he had seen before. "We took fire from Gauss Rifles, Extended range Large bore lasers, pulse lasers of different types, and I picked up what I think are streak type of SRM's. When we start recovery? We will know more. I have ordered all of the equipment moved over to Hangar 6. From there we can figure out what is going on and get more of our and the militias machines back on duty."

H6 was the largest hangar on the drop port. It could hold the entire cargo load and dropships from 2 fully loaded Mammoth class dropships at the same time. It was the perfect place to be the gathering point for the wreckage and keep it out of public viewing. It also had the needed internal support systems to repair larger items.

The two military commanders were looking at the short game, in McDonogh's eyes. "Okay get everything into the Labs. NO have the labs send everyone over to H6. And by everyone? I mean everyone, and not just the ones they think they can spare!"

There was a reason, which the two units could identify that they had been going against weapons tech of that level. MMM had spent a lot of money in giving these two units those systems, which could help them fight against things like that. If the attack would have been in another month? Each one of his heavy or larger combat units would have at least one if not two extended ranged PPC fitted. At least all of the cannon armed mechs or tanks could pack a high-speed cannon. Not having enough second generation heatsinks had been a major issue. One that Mike was going to see how he could fix in the near future.

He turned and looked at the local military leader. "I know you have taken losses, and you would love to use some of the salvage to rebuild your unit. Send a detailed list to MMM, of your repair needs. We will make it good, plus a few percent on some special items. You have my word. I will make it right for your people."

He could see the militia commander getting ready to say something. The red face was a dead giveaway. He was not in the mood to have to deal with something like that, not with bodies still being recovered. "Before you say something, think about this Colonel. We, at MMM, have not been able to get much traction in making the weapons that can compete with the volume and the verity that has been coming out of the Great Houses for the last ten years. If we can get a few examples of some other advanced weapons? We might be able to change this downward trend. I will tell you both something. As far as I know, in the whole MC. There are only two next generation weapons that show promise to going into full rate production. Anything else, weapons wise? We are falling behind, and we have not been able to get any examples or workout how to make anything else. If we can use this as a starting point, we can make more."

Mike could see the stunned looked on the woman, and he let his voice get a little softer. "I'm not saying we could make them, by the hundreds. But what if we could make a few new weapons every month? You're our primary shield, so you would get some of what we can make, at least on this planet. Not many, but some to help your people keep their edge against any unwanted visitors. Like we have been doing over the last year, without charging market rates on those weapons." He gave the militia commander a level look. He knew when to play hardball, and he was betting that the Colonel knew were her bread and butter was coming from.

This stopped any of the building arguments, as they stood in silence. Mike used the silence and the three of them watched as the battlefield started to be cleaned up. As he watched a headless Warhammer that he thought was a Ronin made 7M, was being loaded. It was being put beside another headless mech that he knew was a Thunderbolt. He was thinking that at least those two mechs would be easy to get back into working order. It still was going to take some time to replace the 12 mechs and 18 tanks that had been wrecked. That did not count the damaged units on the ground and his space forces.

They stayed like this for a few minutes, as the group watched the medics and firefighters finished their job. They were done before the fleeing dropships had attached themselves to the jumpship at the nonstandard jump point. By the time that the jumpship was out of the system? The battle site had been cleared of the larger pieces of combat machines.

News of the attack was sent to the rest of the universe, before the inspection of the damage was done to the two facilities on the drop port was complete. It would take weeks to months for the Security and Militia to recover from the battle. It was noted that none of the enemy attackers had been taken alive. This was marked as strange, after all the Condor alone had carried over 300 infantry troopers. Some people in high command connected the dots on the high technology, and that there were no survivors. That alone had limited the number of possible candidates that could or would launch an attack like this one.

 **Xanthe III**

Colonel Victor Crutchely was looking over the mech bay as the great doors closed behind the last of the investigators. They had come from the FWL, but it seemed that they were more from ComStar than any member of the central government. This group had spent the last two hours grilling him on his statements on the combat action, which had involved his unit and the other locals. Victor quickly worked out that they were just checking the boxes and making sure that this unit knew that the "gift" they had received last month, had a few strings attached.

The "gift" had shown up after the second after action review had been closed. It had been with some fanfare that a 35ton Ostscout had been given to them. Colonel Victor Crutchely of Crutchely's Crackers was a mix battalion made up of one Mech Company and two tank companies. He had lost his scout lance, when this unit had been seized in their barracks by a "Pirate". The Pirates had been very well armed, better armed than any other unit in the whole FWL, and Victor knew it. Losing one third of his mech force had hurt his units badly.

Officially he had lost the whole lance in that action. Only one member of his scout unit had died, two others had been hurt badly and the other had escaped without a scratch. All four members of the lance had been reported as dead to the local authorities. They were the only ones that could give a firsthand account of the enemy's firepower and composition. He was hiding them among the different types of techs that worked for him. He had been looking at getting another contract within the FWL, and only vaguely looking elsewhere. Now he was actively looking elsewhere for his next paymaster, things within the FWL where changing in a way he did not like or trust.

He had to admit the bribe to keep quiet of the 35ton mech was nice. He could have wished for something bigger, but it was a scout lance he had lost. And the Ostscout was a very good scout machine. His people had recovered all of the machines of the gutted scout lance, and they had gotten two of the four battle damaged machines back into operations by cannibalizing parts. Funds from the Local government had allowed his techs to get a Locust back in operation. They still did not have pilots for them, officially. The Ostscout would bring his unit back to "normal" strength. That still did not make him happy. Even after the locals had "given" him one of the two recovered Dragonstars. His unit had taken a hit on their reputation, which could affect the next contract. That recovered small craft had been another bribe. The locals were the ones who had told him that the Overlord and Union, were a Com Guard connected unit just catching some ground time between jumps.

An enemy had gotten the drop on him and his unit. He had already fired the duty guards and replaced them with new hires, which would learn from the failures of others or be released. Victor's head came up when a voice came from behind him.

"Hey Boss! We got a box that has your name on it," the senior tech had not fully entered the room. He had only stuck his head in the open doorway. "Where you expecting any new parts, and you didn't let me know about it."

Victor now was fully back into the world. His unit, like most mercenary units, lived hand to mouth most of the time. He knew down to the MG round what he had spent money on over the last six months. He was not expecting anything for a few months. He doubted, that the T and T system for the Assassin had come in 4 months early. "No chief. I can't think of anything. Are you sure it's for us?"

The Chief Tech looked hurt. "It has your name on it. Do you want to check it out?"

Victor didn't even think that long about it. "Yea let's check it out. I need to get out of this office before I lose my mind."

The two-men walked to the end of the warehouse. They shared some small talk about the possible future of the unit. When they made the turn both men saw the crate. It was large enough to hold a medium sized mech. It was not a mech shipping crate, but it was close in size. When they made it to the front of the metal crate. It was easy to see that it was addressed to him and his unit. He gave a shrug of his shoulders, and the two men opened the crate. They quickly realized that the crate was new built or one that had not spent that much time exposed to the elements.

A power loader pulled one of three smaller crates exposed in the dark larger crate. The smaller crates were bland and without any outside markings. It didn't take long for the power loader to move the 7 tons of mass fully out of the crate. The reading of the power loader told them, that the mass of all three of them were the same. The third crate had an envelope attached to one side.

While Victor opened the envelope, his head tech opened one of the three now exposed crates. Victor had just gotten passed the shipping information, when his head shot up at the raised voice from his chief tech.

"GOOD GOD! Would you look at you, and aren't you a beautiful beast!"

Victor looked over the shoulder and down into the open crate. It was holding a weapon, an energy weapon, but that was about all he could tell of the object. "Chief, what is it?"

The chief engineer passed over a note he had found inside the case. "That Boss, is an Extended Ranged PPC. She is not new; you can see the carbon scoring on the end. I so cannot wait to get under her skirt!"

Victor opened the note. "Dear Victor Crutchely. I am sorry for the loss of your scout lance. It was their warning that helped us avoid a well laid trap. These weapons are a gift of thanks. It will not make up for your lost man, but I hope that it helps. Robert Copeland of Copeland Supply, Salvage and Resale."

Victor looked up in time to see the lid of the third small crate come flying open. Victor and the Tech looked down at 3 H class weapons. That was enough firepower to make a major addition to his unit. It would take a lot of planning on how to best use this windfall. He always could sell the weapons and the small craft to buy another mech. It would be a good medium class one. But having three upgraded mechs? that would make almost one third of his mechs updated. Then he could ask for more money on the next contract.

Two nights later, Victor was having after dinner drinks with his head tech. "You know Victor, besides Winkels dying. This has not been that bad of a tour. We got paid on time and we even got a bonus. We were able to keep all of our machines and tanks working. Beside "the issue", we came out on top." Tom put down his glass and looked at his boss very closely. The term "the issue" had been used after the first meeting with the investigators.

Victor nodded his head. "Winkels was a good boot, green, but he was turning into a good scout. After "the issue", I didn't have one kind word to say about him getting all of the scouts taken out. What I had to say about this Copeland and company was not safe for civil company to hear. As soon as we are away from here, and we can knock the rust off the three surviving scouts. We will be okay. That OTT-7J is better than the Stinger we couldn't get back into the field. She still gave us some good parts we can use later. Then this Commander Copeland sends us those three weapons. He could have sent us three standard PPC's and they would have been a great boon for us."

The tech now had a toothy smile. "Yea, I was thinking about that. You noticed that they said "man" not men. It seems like they found out that the other three scouts are alive and well. And they put that information on something that was not hackable or seen by our local communication company. It was like they knew that we did not want some other group to know they were alive. So, what are you going to do?"

Victor gave a smile. "I sent them a thank you note, and I will just keep an eye out for them. We did them a good turn. They did us one back, and then they raised it with a little bag of gold. You know that you have to beware of gifts from strangers."

 **Ragnar Anchorage**

 **One month after arrival**

Captain Phipps was reviewing reports. He was not in the nice office on board his ship. He was sitting in what had been a small medical supply closet on the Anchorage. Now it was his office or would be someone else's office space in the near future. All of the supplies that the Boreas had carried had been off loaded and either used or put into storage. In the original idea, that the ship had been launched under. They were to start on C deck of the Anchorage, and they would work first down and then up towards A Deck. As they were fixing, they also would be getting the station ready for the mission of being the Head Quarters for all long-term operations in Colonial space.

That had changed, now they were starting at the "top" near the main docking port. That had been after working on the base of the great rust bucket of a space station. Each deck had a dedicated fusion engine to power that area. The Main power was now supplied by 3 old assault mech engines in the light weight 300 class. Only one was "on" at any one time, and the other two were backups in case of damage or when energy weapons were ever added to the station. The hydrocarbon and Tylium burning generators had been pulled out. They were now sitting in a cargo hold of the Boreas, waiting to be taken back to New Circe.

The now freed up room was slowly being turned into some "real" engineering space to support the station in that section. What was left of the old jump engines? They were being slowly cataloged and removed from their housing at the bottom of the station. They were being stored in a recently cleared out massive Number 1 bay of section 6 of Deck C. There were 6 major bays in each of the 6 sections that made up each of A, B, and C deck.

After getting the logistics computer put back into operation, and this new information source had caused a radical change of plans. It had been after a LandRam, of all things, had been found while they were cleaning out an area to hold the old spare power generators. He had no idea how it got there, or why. All they did know was that it was not on the inventory list they could access. That was a little disturbing.

After they got the one bay straighten out and properly inventoried. After that find, they had started on A Deck. They were going through every little box and putting it someplace that anyone could find it again later. They had already found some stripped down 1st Cylon War Raptors, some old EVA suits that had not been on the inventory computer. Those might prove useful, if they make any landfall that was still hot from the Cylon nuclear weapons. Oh, and they had found 3 more LandRams. Who would put something like that on a station that was to support Battlestars fighting Basestars?

Peter had to shake his head and get back to the business at hand. Things were moving along about as planned, if a little behind what had been some of the more optimistic timelines. Now he needed to start looking at the next phase of this operation. This was going to be a nice hidden base close to Colonial space. But it was not going to be the main base of operations. A hidden base needed to be kept hidden. All so that you had a fallback position, when the main base drew too much attention from the bad guys. That was where Phase Two came in, now that Ragnar was working up nicely. It was time to see what was going on around them. With a note sent to one of the launch bays, and soon a Raptor would be leaving his ship to start the next phase.

Lips had been getting bored patrolling. First, they had mapped the open area that held the station and then they had helped map the outside of the Anchorage. They were keeping an eye out to make sure that no Cylon or their devices activated after the first few scans. Then they had made run after rundown the Tunnel, and a few hundred meters on either side of the tunnel. That had been… hair raising, but nothing had been found. That had taken a week, before the Raptors could fly out and around the local area, but never going FTL on the mission to scout the area.

Now it looked like they could do some real scouting. It was just luck that Lips and Crank were the next duty team, when the orders to start the Phase Two scouting missions had come in. They had been briefed on this, before this mission had even left New Circe. They all knew what they were to look for and where. With a huge smile on her face, she went out the vent like launch bay at full combat launching speed. They were being sent out to find the forward staging point for missions into the rest of the Cyrannus system.

 **Over the planet Troy**

The Raptor "popped" into real space like the scout she had been designed to be. They were about 3 days away, at her current speed to fall into high orbit over the small planet named Troy. They could have jump closer, but they needed updated data on the local space. If they jumped right into high orbit? They would have been very easily detected by any Cylons that might happened to be around. After all that was how the Cylons had surprised the Colonials to start the new war. They had jumped into high orbit, and then rain death on any humans around them. Admiral Adama was not going to fall into that trap. If the enemy can do it? Then there is a good chance that they are looking for you to try something along the same lines.

The systems on the Raptor were in passive mode, and they collected everything that they could within their reach. If they went active? They could have gotten the needed data faster. If they went active, they also would have announced to anyone within a huge volume of space that they were there. That was not something Lips wanted to do. This was called a scouting mission, not a suicide mission. Lips didn't mind dying, but she wanted to do it on her own terms.

When they had enough data, Crank reached over and tapped the pilot on the head. She had not noticed the green light. It was time to get a closer look at Troy. She double checked the numbers that her EO had inputted into the jump computer. It looked okay, but there was only one real way to find out. She forced herself to relax, and with a push of a button. She activated the jump drive.

In a flash it went from a black and star filled vision wherever the pilot might look out of the transparent cockpit. Now she had a wall of flames and then the open skies of a planet. It was not a livable planet, but it was a planet. She had just pulled off an Adama maneuver and jumped from space into a planet's atmosphere.

The Raptor was falling, and it took Lips a few seconds to get her craft back under control. She pulled out of the dive with her Raptor only a few hundred meters above the ground. Luckily this area was mostly flat. That had been one of the reasons that this location had been selected for her target with her maneuver. While she was trying to keep from crashing, her EO was bringing the scout systems back online.

Crank was not watching the approaching ground. There were some things that you just did not want to know. As his systems picked up enough data, it was displayed on the screens around him. Just as the nose of the craft pulled up, the crash warning had stopped bellowing in his ears. "We are looking for small domes, right?"

Lips let out a little breath as her heart rate slowed down. "Yep, they think that the Cylons would have popped the larger domes during the start of the war. We just need something to be a forward base to support a few Raptors." She looked around the view out of her cockpit at a much-reduced horizon. "Where are we?"

Crank looked at a different screen. "We are coming up on the south side of Hades 1. I'm picking up some Cylon transmissions on the sideband, but not enough to make anything out. Recorders are up and running, maybe HQ can use it."

Lips felt her heart skip a beat. "Hades 1" was not the real name of that area. It had been the site of a major catastrophe that had killed thousands before the start of the new war with the Cylons. Hades 1 had been what the press had called the area after the mining Dome had failed. That area had been a massive mining area, which had been a major lost to the economy of the whole Cyrannus system. That had not been the only mine on this planet, it had only been the largest at that time.

Lips dropped her craft lower to the ground and started flying nap of the earth. This type of flying took more out of the pilot, but it was safer unless you just happened to over fly an enemy gun battery. That would have been just bad luck, but the Wolverines had an idea called the Golden Beebe. Lips was a convert to this idea. And she kept her head on a swivel, as her craft first jumped and then fell as she kept it about 15m off the deck at just over the speed of local sound. The EO was the one looking for any domes or other areas that might be useful as the staging point for a major recon mission. He also was looking out for any signs of Cylons that might be a threat.

Crank's voice came through Lips's helmet mounted speakers. "Picking up more chatter on the sidebands. It's getting stronger, but I still can't get a back bearing on it."

The maps said that an ancient super volcano caldera was ahead, that had at one time been mostly covered by the dome of Hades 1. She pulled up sharply on the controls and then pushed them down just as hard, but before the craft had cleared the red and orange stone ridge. As her cockpit field of view came back down, her eyes got big. She did not even realize that she pulled her craft hard to the right, without looking where she was going. She shot up a side canyon at high speed. When a massive cliff wall came rushing towards them, way too fast. She pulled up hard and her craft started climbing in the contaminated atmosphere. She was still going faster than the local speed of sound as she climbed higher and higher.

Crank was looking at the screens displaying a nightmare. "Holy Frak! That is not a ruin! More Cylon transmissions and more buildings south of us! I count a dozen of them! It looks like they are built right on top of the old domes. They have to have millions of tin heads down there!" As the craft climbed higher the scouting systems pulled in more data. Even the SLiE probe was sucking in a massive amount of data, now that they had a larger field of view.

Lips was not talking. She was too busy making sure that nothing was closing in on them. Just as they cleared the atmosphere, she hit the button and they jumped. It was all over in less than 30 seconds, and besides the heat from her engines and the jump signature. She had been completely passive. As long as any Cylons were not looking her way. They should not know that she or her EO had ever been there.

 **A few hours later at the anchorage**

The meeting room on the Boreas was very nice. It had been left over from her time as a luxury liner. Lips and Crank were sitting on one side of the table and the commanders for this mission were on the other side. On a screen that separated the two groups was playing the data taken by the Raptor on split screens. One side held data from the DRADIS and the other one held data gathered from the Star League Beegle probe. The data did not look good no matter what side of the screen you were looking at. It looked like a massive expansion of production had been added to that one area of Troy alone. And that expansion had not been done for humans.

Peter looked at his two young officers. "Do you have any more to add to your report?"

Lips shot Crank a look and then looked back at the Captain. "I think I saw some ships that were on the dark side of Troy, just before we jumped out but I'm not sure. I don't know if the recon systems picked them up or not."

Captain Phipps nodded. "Thank you, and you both may go. Report to the deck chief, he will have instructions for you."

When the two Raptor crewmembers had left, he looked over at the Colonel. Charles Bellamy was going to be in charge of the Ragnar Anchorage when he left. With this information, there was no choice that Peter and the liner were not going to have to leave. After some cross talk between the senior leaders of the mission, a time was set for the modified liner to leave. The Boreas needed to get this data back to the fleet. If they could take out this base? It would have a major impact on the war effort. A positive one for Humans and a negative one for the Cylons.

When the converted liner left the station, she was short two dozen of her normal crew load. They had all volunteered to stay behind and help the security and maintenance people on the anchorage. Not surprising, most of the volunteers had been from the engineering and launch bays staff. The Raptors would also stay behind at the anchorage. The jump fighters and other small combat craft could not use the stations access ports to board their craft. At least not without having to go full EVA to first get into the cockpits. Maybe after Section 6 of A deck was done, that would change. Until then that was not an option for those crews.

As soon as the liner had left the Tunnel, it activated its jump engines and left this part of space. Its jump point was almost exactly the same one, which she had used when she had last left this area under the protective fire of the old Battlestar. Thanks to her upgraded computers supplied by the SLiE. She would be able to make the trip back to New Circe a lot faster than the last time this ship had left this anchorage.

 **Canopus IV**

Igarashi Miya was alone in his cabin, and he was not on "his" command Overlord. It had been re-tasked, not long after he had reported the failure of his last mission. After his return to Canopus, he had been slowly frozen out of field operations outside of his area. He knew that the White Hand's and the Sundogs were being rebuilt but he had not been given an update, after he finally found out about their changing status.

His one last chance of redemption had been launching that attack on Copeland when he landed on Dunianshire. ROM had tracked down the bugs that he had been able to get smuggled onto Copeland's ships. Then some of his people found out the time that Copeland was expected to arrive at the minor planet. He had called in every favor he had left to get the attack launched. All he knew was that the unit had run into heavy fire and had been pushed back off planet, before they could torch the three targeted dropships of Copelands. He did not know how badly it had gone, but he knew it had not gone to his plan.

That was why he was sitting here in a ComStar flagged liner spinning a disk in his fingers, that held his orders recalling him to "one of the lost worlds" for consultations. He knew that it was going to take a long time for him to patch up his career within ROM. ROM was not known for forgiving failures, and he had a rap sheet full of them lately. His brooding was interrupted by a pounding on the hatch to his private cabin. Before he could say a word, the hatch opened without his command or his authorization.

Igarashi was about to berate the intruder, when he saw the one red eye. As the Head of ROM in the MC let his eyes drop, to see more of the figure standing in the open hatch. He saw the metal arm that was sticking out from under the sleeves of his ComStar robes. This stayed his tongue, from the comment about to launch off of it. This was a member of the slowly growing in power group infesting parts of ROM. This was one of the sects that worshiped metal as much as it did the Word of Blake. The term hyper zealot was thrown around, but only where these monsters could not hear it.

In a very mechanical voice. "He wants to talk to you. Follow me." The tone was so flat that even if it was delivered by a normal person, it would have been leached of any sign of emotion or humanity.

Igarashi gave a curt nod, rose from his bunk, straightens his robes and walked out of his room. He knew were the bridge of a ship like this was, and he didn't need to be led around like a wayward child or someone that was learning impaired. He was still wondering how a merchant captain had gotten the best of him, and he put the half machine half man out of his mind. He was so lost in thought, that he did not notice the open hatch.

He did feel the metal arm grab the hood of his robe and throw him into the open hatch. Igarashi was so stunned. That it took him a few seconds to realize, that he had been touched by the lowly Adept. He shot to his feet and threw the hood of his robes back to give the adept his best withering look. He just got the look right, when the once open hatch closed without making a sound. Now there was a thick metal hatch between him and the subject of his ire.

One of Igarashi's last visions was of the one red eye and one blue eye looking at him threw the Ferro-glass window of the closed hatch. Now Igarashi realized where he was, and he quickly looks around. Before he could do more than form words, the hatch behind him opens. The sudden movement of air pulls the ROM agent out into the black of space. He was clinically dead within a few seconds, but that didn't mean that he still did not feel a lot of pain for some time later.

The one red eyed adept looked at the black hole in the hull, and then he flips a switch to close it. "Your reeducation can now begin Igarashi. It is just too bad you were so frail. That was a good one. I need to remember that one. Frail, that has a ring to it."

The frozen body of a white robed Igarashi made it to the jump point 8 days later, and it kept on going. It would not escape this star, but it would be in a very odd orbit that would have him seeing the deepest parts of the Ort cloud. His body would not return to the warmer parts of this star until sometime in 3195. Only then it would be pulled into the close orbit around the star, were it would be burned into atoms before it could start another trip out into the deep cold of the Ort cloud. He would not be missed, and he only would be remembered as a foot note as a member of ComStar before the great wars with the Clans and the Cylons.

 **Notes** :

 **Fake SOP**. It is not unknown for someone to sell fake treasure maps and documents to the unwary. Why not let one of Robert's crew get a little extra spending money. Or it could have been made by a third Party like the Magistracy Intelligence Ministry.

 **The Ostscout:** it had come up on the MUL for the FWL. It was not my first choice, but it is going to replace a mech in a scout unit.

 **ComStar forces:** Upgraded Fortress with 12mechs, 12 heavy tanks, 3 platoons INF. Condor with 18 light tanks and a dozen highly trained infantry platoons (330 troopers). Upgraded Triumph 4 mechs, 24 heavy tanks, 12 light tanks. Why so many infantry personnel? They were planning on being needed as boarders on the dropships. One of those same dropships, which had already beat off a dozen battle armor suits and a hundred skilled boarders.

 **MMM Clints**. MMM is making three different versions of the Clint. The old standby, one that replaced the old AC-5 with an ultra, and one that uses an ER-PPC in place of the AC-5.

 **Colonel Victor Crutchely of Crutchely's Crackers**. Commands a mix battalion of a medium mech company, a heavy tank company, and a medium tank company. They were gifted a 35ton Ostscout OTT-7J and a Dragonstar to keep their mouths shut.

 **Igarashi Miya**. Now Word of Blake has lost one of their prime leaders, before there is a WoB. Got to love a butterfly.


	36. Chapter 36 10 Oct 3048

**Chapter 36**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **10 Oct 3048 the second run**

 **Ltzehoe**

In a flash of energy that rushed out of one point of space, so far from the nearest star that it was invisible to the naked eye. From a jump point this star was only another point of light under the most powerful telescopes. This star was just only a little brighter than the uncounted others visible from this lonely position in the deep, cold, and so empty part of space. Only 60 seconds after the 660meter long ship appeared in this system. Now energy waves of a different type were leaving the null gravity point at the speed of light. This set of waves were meant to be picked up, but this set was on a different frequency range than the first set had been. These were meant to be picked up and "read". They also were directed to one office, in one building, on the entire life supporting planet.

Robert looked around with pride in "his" ship, as the personnel around him went about their jobs. Robert was sitting and letting his second in command and captain of this ship do his work. After a few minutes, he could not wait any longer. "Jules, have you been able to find The Egg?"

Jules walked over to the convoy commander, thanks to the Colonial supplied artificial gravity deck plating. "Yes, sir we have. They are 100,000 miles away on a heading of 36 and down 75 degrees from the docking collars. We are still waiting for a reply to our challenge. It should be here any second, now. They might have been asleep, it's not like those small craft you bought were built to detect a jumpship coming in."

Robert nodded, "Good. When traffic control contacts us? I want to launch the Lisbon Maru towards the planet. I don't fully trust the engines on the new White Rabbit, just yet. She will be staying with you. The Hobgoblin will be staying at the jump point also. Her captain messaged me, last night. He wants to run some training missions with all of their craft. I think that out here, would be the best and most secure place to do that training."

The orders were given, and Robert left to board the Mule class dropship. Jess and the others that would be going planet side, were already in their rooms on the transport. They were just waiting for Robert to board the dropship and the word to be given to release the clamps.

During the run to this stop. The White Rabbit 2 had been inspected for any more tracking devices. When none had been found on all the ships? They had looked for a second, and then a third time for any hidden spying devices every time they did a jump into an empty star system. None were found on the newest dropship in the SLDF Navy. They could not do much else in those empty star systems. So, Robert ordered that any vacant cargo space on the modified Union be filled with important cargo from the Lisbon Maru. Anything that was small enough to pass between the Mule and Tramp to the modified Union was moved by hand.

The Mule class was going to be at risk, so the items that "must" get home had quickly filled the cargo bays of the Union. Robert was planning to top off the Mule class, on this last stop. The Styx was filled to where it was just shy of it being unsafe to operate. All so that the Mule could pack in a few more tons of cargo.

Robert was in his cabin waiting for the feeling of the large dropship to start moving. He didn't have to wait long, before the thud of clamps unlocking could be felt throughout the dropship. Then the harder thud of the smaller jets pushing the massive vessel clear of the jumpship, so that the massive plasma engine would do its job and not damage any of the other ships. It would take five days for the dropship to make land fall. It would take three days for the little Mark VII landing boats to tow the "Big Egg" to close the distance to the Styx. The Styx would need two more days to finish charging the drive, after the "Big Egg" was attached to her spine.

The pair of small craft were running their engines at the maximum power setting, until they started to overheat. They were burning threw fuel a lot faster, than they should. This was not that big of a deal, because the small craft could take fuel from the 100,000ton dropship, while they let their engines cool down again. Robert was kept in the loop of the major events that had taken place behind him. It was a great learning experience for all of the crews, as they practiced what they had seen in the Bivouac system. It was done, and no one was hurt to any degree that it would affect the mission at this late stage.

When the Lisbon Maru landed at the drop port. It was given a landing site that was close to the main drop port buildings. It was a prime spot on the facility. One that should have been filled with one of the four other dropships, which had already made port call. There were a mixed of combat dropships, except for another Mule class that was already on the ground. By the look on the scorch marks on the drop port, Robert was guessing that this planet was seeing a lot more business this year compared to the last few decades.

Robert was betting that the Union was the same one, which had caught a ride, on the same jumpship that had dropped off the Behemoth in this system. As soon as the ground was cool, and the fuel transferred to top off the tanks of the dropship. A very well-known hover car was coming out to the just landed dropship. Robert was on the bridge when she was sighted heading their way. He had just enough time to get down to the personnel access ramp, before the hover car was in the shade provided by the dropship.

Duke Terry was behind the wheel and jumped out of the hover car, when she saw Robert coming out to meet her. She gave him a beaming smile that few that knew her, would have believe that she was capable of giving to anyone. Jess was only about ten steps behind Robert, coming down the access way. With one bit of information, and that was the lack of damage on the dropship? It had answered a question that Terry had been trying to work out.

She still had the smile on and planted a kiss on the commander, and after pulling a way. She made a show of looking around. "You're early! Not that I mind that you are here. I was worried when word came that there was a big attack on the main drop port on Dunianshire. Your travel plans had you listed as stopping there, before you came this way. Did something change your mind?"

Jess stopped walking mid stride, and snake quick turned to look at her commander. This was the first time, that she had heard that the travel plans Robert had filed had them going to Dunianshire. Robert could feel the look and turned to face Jess. He had made sure that only he had seen that information of his people. He had filed this in his mind under OPSEC.

"Yes. Something came up, that made me decide to change our plans at the last minute." Robert's mind went back in time.

 **Months earlier.**

Robert was setting in the meeting room going over different ideas. He was tired of reacting to someone always making the first moves against his command. He felt it was time to have them move to his tune. With a sly smile he started writing down some notes on a notepad that would never leave his ships. Before they had landed on the planet called Canopus. He had asked Jess to track down some information for him.

Robert had not slept, but he was still fired up. "Jess you remember that MMM dropship repair crew, which was set up on one end of the main Drop port?"

Jess had no idea what he was driving at. "Yes sir? That is if you mean the light damage repair unit that was near us, I do. Why?"

Robert had a half smile on his face. "Good, you do remember them. I wanted to refresh my memory. There was a repair pit for commercial spheroid type dropships up to 12,000 tons, and next to it was a warehouse looking repair area. That one was for aerodyne and spheroid type ships and other large transports up to about 5 to 7,000 tons or more. Is that about, right?

Jess was very confused. "Yes sir, that sounds about right. I would have to get with the Cargo Master on the White Rabbit. He spent more time with them, than anyone else."

Robert was looking down at his note pad again. "Please do, and ask him if he remembers that Solaris team, they were all crazy about. On second thought also have him come by my office when he has some open time."

Jess had done as she had been asked. She digitally sent him the information, and then did not think much about it. When they had landed on the capital world of the MC. Robert had searched for a shop that he would not tell anyone about. He had made all the contacts himself and in person. It was only after they had been on the planet for a few days, that he had shown Jess something.

Robert had called Jess into the meeting room. It was late and after he had returned from a meeting that he had only took his escorts to. When she had entered the room. Robert had pushed a cheap plastic covered cloth package over to her. She quickly opened the package, to see a safety helmet with an attached safety jacket. It was very high quality and looked like they had cost a pretty c-bill to have made.

It looked exactly like the combination safety sets that the MMM used on the drop port. The only difference was a very nice screen painted logo of the Solaris team that she had told him about. She had agreed that it was the same style, that the MMM crews had worked in and the logo was the correct one. Robert had thanked her and they both had set out on the way to check on the new Union.

What she did not know, was that he had ordered 100 sets of the helmet/jackets. The logo on the back was not the only modification to the safety set. He had each of the radio trackers sown into the jackets back panel and the remainder were hidden in the removable helmets. Now that the modified safety gear was done. He made arrangements to have the items shipped off planet on the next ship making a stop at the right system.

With that done. He had sent a coded HPG message to McDonogh. In that coded message, he had lied to the head of MMM. The message said that they had been approached by a group to carry out a raid to his planet. He had told the head of MMM, that the target was going to be the dropship repair areas at the main drop port. He did not tell the head of MMM, about the trackers in the jackets he was sending under a fake name directly to those teams. He had told the head of MMM that he was faking a travel plan, because they seemed to be set on setting up his people after turning the MMM raid down. Robert passed along the window of dates, that he thought the attack might take place on the drop port. The rest they say, is history.

 **14 Oct 3048 the second run**

 **Back on Ltzehoe**

All of that had replayed in his head in a flash, that was only two or three seconds in the world outside of his brain. "Attack? What attack?" Robert made his face go still and he made sure he didn't look any were near Jess.

Terry could tell that something was off, not bad, but just a little off. The look that Robert was getting from Jess, who was close to him, was setting off major warning bells for the planetary Duke. She shot Robert a look and then decided to play along. "A mixed force of a Battalion size unit attacked the MMM dropship repair areas on Dunianshire. They jumped in system at a pirate point and put out three military dropships, that made a very high-speed run to the planet. The security and local defense force were ready for them, when they touched down on that section of the drop port."

Robert had his poker face on in full force. "That was lucky of them. I'm glad that I changed my mind, about making a stop there. Do you have any more of the details on what happened? Why would attackers go after that repair area? Were they trying to grab another dropship? I wonder what their objective might have been."

Terry had been very concerned, when news reached her about an attack that she thought might have been targeted on the man she had feelings for. She had a vivid memory of how she felt when she had read the HPG supplied message. She turned and slipped an arm threw the commander's arm. It was a sly move, that Robert noticed coming and let happen anyway.

"Why don't you, Jess, and your escorts come have a meal with me? I will even let you pick my brain about the attack, and on some other topics." She was using the sweet voice that made Jess fight down a grin, which tried to show on her face. She was also starting to like Duke Terry more, and Jess could tell that she really cared for her boss.

Jess turned and waved to two large "deckhands" that were standing by the hatch entrance to the large Mule Class dropship. The new pair quickly made their way down the access ramp and climbed into the back of the hover car. The task of escorting Copeland was very sought after by the crew. It allowed them to scout the best areas and restaurants on any given port. They would use this information when they were off shift or trade this information to the rest of the crewmembers.

It was not anywhere near the normal mealtimes, for the locals. Duke Terry took them to her house/command center. The meal was in a smallish dining room that Jess and Robert had shared with Terry before. While they waited for a steak and sides "dinner" to be brought out to them all. Terry started catching them up on things. She started with what limited facts that the news had broken about the attack on the MMM facilities on the main drop port.

The loss of life had been low. This was mainly because the MMM repair facility had been shut down for some reason two days before the jumpship had arrived at the pirate point. The defending units had taken a beating, but they had almost wiped out the ground attackers. The dropships had been able to pull some of the attack forces out of the ambush, but not that many made it back to the ships. The ones left behind had blown their cockpits apart or ate a bullet, instead of being put on public trial as pirates. The dropship repair areas would be down for between a month to a few months, all to do the repairs needed before the facility could be put back into operation. But it was being advertised that it could have been a lot worse.

The group stopped talking when the thick cut steaks cooked to order came through a side door that leads back to the main kitchen. Robert was not eating like he was enjoying the meal. Jess could tell that the information about the attack was bothering him. Jess already had a working idea of why the "pirates" had attacked the areas that Robert had asked about. Robert had used them as bait, or maybe decoy was a better term of what he had done to the MMM facility. Terry thought that this was a dangerous game to play with the most powerful company in the MC.

Jess was feeling bad for her commander and tried to change the subject away from the attack on the MMM Facility. "So, Duke. How are things here? Have you had any more of your own pirate attacks?" Jess was looking at the female duke, and she thought that she might have said something wrong.

Terry put her fork and knife down in mid cut and looked levelly at Jess. Then she turned to talk to Robert. "Things have not been quiet, since you left. The pair of Vulcan fighters have paid for themselves a few times over already. They are not the best at ground support attacks, but they have taken out a few fighters that seemed to have not known that we had them. They even got a few good bites out of a Leopard, which tried to make our lives hell, again. I don't think he will be back anytime soon, unless he was able to find an engine replacement. They even got a few hits on a Merchant class jumpship, but she got away before they could stop her jump."

Now it was time for Terry to change the subject to something that she wanted to talk about. "I think the people over at MMM are going to be looking at some heavier Aero fighters. I heard that their light Sabers had a problem dealing with the attacker's transports. The dropships were reported to have some upgraded weapons all over the place, and they were not afraid to use them."

Robert swallowed his latest bite of very good steak. He was not going to rise to that bait just yet. "Really, to bad I sold off the fighters I had on hand. I was able to pick up more mech parts, which might be useful to you. They should fit, and I paid for them out of my own pocket so my partners will stay out of my books."

He shot Jess a look and then gave her a wink. "I will be looking at the same trade, like we did before. I think Jess might have a few items that she might want to talk to you about."

Terry gave a tired smile. "That is good news. That brings me to something else. Thank you for getting that jumpship out here. All most all of the jumpships, we have been seeing lately, have been ComStar operated Explorer Corps vessels. I about had a heart attack, when that Behemoth separated from the jumpship. Even with the warning you sent via HPG, it was a hell of a training event for my people. I had my people make regular contact with your people on that craft, after the jumpship left. I would have loved to have been able to turn them into a training event with my fighters, but it was too far out."

Terry was smiling a little more now. "That Union that came out? Well it is picking up a huge amount of ammunition. I was able to swing buying a sweet little JVN-10 Javelin off of them, and I still have cash on hand. We also have been running a few joint training events with them. They will be picking up a ride out in a few weeks, to take them to where their contract wants them. They would not have been able to get out here, if you had not chartered the run in the first place. Are you sure you won't pick up a few tons of ammunition, before you leave?"

She had a pained smile that said she had been joking. "The spare parts will be nice. We have been having to order and pay for shipping out of the nose, for them to come out of Dunianshire. That is thanks, again to these ComStar pain in the arse."

Robert could feel the heat in the calm voice, and he delayed any comment until after a few more bites of food. With Terry now visibly calmer to her dinner guests. He told her about what they have been threw on this trip, so far. He did not gloss over the attack that had almost wiped out their fighter support. Terry was surprised that they had faced that much firepower, and they had lived to tell about it. When he told her that they thought the attackers might have been ComStar or paid for by that group. Jess had tried to keep her face plain, but she knew she failed when Duke Terry turned to face her for a few seconds while Robert was talking. The woman almost had eyes in the back of her head to have seen Jess's face.

When Robert was done telling his side of the story. He had left off his part in setting up the attack, he thought was coming and had it land on MMM Instead of his people. Duke Terry knew that he was not telling her the whole story, but that was okay with her. She was not telling him everything that she knew about a lot of different subjects.

"We have had more problems with our local ComStar neighbors. The Explorer Corps and Com Guards are okay, but the blokes running the place are a different story. I had to confine most of them to the compound and special tourist areas a few months ago. I found out they were poking around and asking the wrong types of questions to some people that support the grey market. It seems like they would like a change of the local government." Duke Terry's tone was again soft, but it was ice cold. It was like the deep of space level cold.

Jess's eyes were wide, and her mouth was moving before she knew it. "Terry! Don't trust them. If they tried once? They will try again. Can you kick them out or off the planet? If you can't get them all, can you blackball some of the troublemakers from your system?"

Duke Terry gave Jess a sad smile. "Jess, I knew that I was making a deal with the devil, when they came out. So, no. I can't kick them off planet. I still need them too much, and not just because they built the only HPG station out this far. I will take your advice and keep an eye on them." She did not say that she was already starting to make some drastic plans, just in case. She was a survivor, and she would do her best not to be caught flat footed.

This was when Robert dropped his little bombshell. "Terry? We will be staying longer on this trip. The Styx is taking care of that monster, we picked up. When they get back? We will be leaving, so we have about ten to twelve days to get things worked out. I hope you don't mind us just kind of hanging out until our ride home comes back?"

Terry put her fork down and folded her hands together and sat her chin on the level part. She was looking at Robert and was batting her eyelashes at him. She was looking sexy as frak to Robert, but he was fighting it, right up until her soft almost purring voice made it to his ear.

"So, I get to have you to myself for a whole week. I think that I would like that. If you can spend some time away from your escorts."

Jess was taking a sip of water and started choking, when Terry turned on the charm. Now she understood why some men were so drawn to the Colonial President. She might be older, but she knew how to get a man to "see" her. Jess decided she needed to step in and reinforce something that she knew, that Terry already knew. She let her voice go very formal to let Terry know, that this was something. That this was not Robert's idea, but orders coming from their higher command.

"Duke Terry. This is something that is not possible or allowed. I'm not saying you would do anything, but what if something happened while he was with you and not escorted. It is something that would get Commander Copeland legally relieved of his command, by the other Captains under his command. He would pay the final price, when we got home."

Duke Terry was first looking closer at the other woman. The tone that she had used? It was not one she had heard in a while. The tone had a slight threat and a slight twinge of fear in it at the same time. Was what she was picking up, really what was meant? Terry turned and looked at Robert, who raised one eyebrow and he gave the planetary leader a slight head nod up and down. She had just thought it was Robert, which did not want to be away from his crew on his last few visits. Now this was a lot different.

Terry was quick off the mark. "We will just have to see how I can work around that little wrinkle. The women of the MC are not known to be that shy."

Now it was Roberts turn to choke a little at the tone, and then he waved his eyebrows at her a few times in a suggestive manner of his own. This odd gesture had both women laughing. The escorts setting further down the table, had no idea what was going on. But as long as they got a good meal and there were not any threats? They just looked at each other and shrugged shoulders and went back to eating the 24 oz. steaks, on their plates. Their generation burned up a lot of calories, even on a slow day.

The week went very quickly for everyone. Some questions were asked about why the Styx had left them behind in this system. It had been by a lot of the local merchants, and other people who stood out with this type of question. Robert knew it would not take long for the information to get back to the ComStar Compound. The cover story was that the jumpship was moving the huge dropship closer to its new owner's home. It would return, and they would leapfrog along. It was not like something like this had not been done before, and it was not even that rare of an event to have to work around. The "story" was bought and passed along to all corners of the city and drop port.

Robert spent most of his off time with Terry, and they seemed to enjoy the time together. That didn't mean that he was not working on getting cargos, to top off the cargo holds on the 3,600ton dropship. The tons of mech spare parts were handed over, and other items were loaded that were bulkier than the parts had been.

Robert was not the only one working the local markets. Jess traded two salvaged Hovertech Quad systems that had come off a scrapped Bulldog tank, for literally tons of high-quality fabrics and cloth. The local Militia leader was blown away at the deal they had fallen into. Duke Terry had told them that it would have been possible, but they had not believed it. Jess did not under list the price of the missile launchers. It was just that they were so hard to come by, and the local items were quickly replaceable. She was taking a lot of stuff, but it was stuff they could replace. A Hovertech short ranged launcher did not grow on sheep like good wool did, so having a backup set was a relief for the local militia supply department.

The only stressful time had been when a Merchant class jumpship arrived in system. It was another ComStar vessel. It was not until sometime later, that traffic control found out it was working for the Explorer Corps. A Leopard launched from the ship, and the Union launched from the drop port only after the Leopard had landed about a kilometer away. That was because this jumpship had passed a message to the Union that their ride was delayed. The delay was because it had a slight helium leak on its jump engine. The Union could wait or catch a ride with them.

The Mercenary Union took the ride and burned towards the jump point. The command staff had to decide what to do. In the end, they decided to take this offered ride out system. They were not getting paid to sit around waiting past a certain amount of travel time. Past that allotted time, all of the cost would come out of the mercenary units pay.

The leopard was carrying a lance of medium mechs that had just finished a raid on a pirate band about 45 light years away. They were planning on staying for about a month on this planet and enjoy some R and R, as well as resupplying their missile boat heavy unit. It also would give them a fixed site to do any needed repairs on their mechs. The mech parts would come out of their supply stocks, but half of the techs doing the work were going to be locals.

Robert had been worried about the new unit, until Terry had said that she knew them and had worked with them before. She told him that they were packing a pair of Dervish and a Trebuchet, along with the commander manning a nicely rebuilt WHM-6R Warhammer. The fighters were a pair of 25ton Thrush fighters, which were only flying due to the amount of space tape wrapped around their outer hulls. That had been the only really stressful time for Commander Copeland and the crew of the Lisbon Maru, when the two fighters over flew the drop port before the Leo had landed.

The only other maybe issue, had been when Robert had listened into a call that had come into Duke Terry's official device. It had come from a senior Adept over at the main ComStar compound. She had at first asked, and then she had demanded. That the Com Guards should be able to put a guard point up at the drop port. With so many attacks, that they could connect directly to Robert's company. They felt that it was a good idea to have a heavy tank, like their Magi, keeping this supply company under close observation.

To most people, having a 70ton Late Star League era tank watching you would be very intimidating. Robert and his people were not in that group. They know that those large weapons were just cooling jackets on a few medium class lasers, and a pair of heavy machine guns. It just did not have that much firepower to threaten someone, even someone with a civilian cargo dropship.

When it was time to leave, Terry became very clingy to Robert. Jess was thinking that Robert had planned for this, because instead of a dawn or midnight launch that was normal. The launch was not scheduled until 10am local. Robert was on the bridge, and everyone else could see, the by now recognized hover car that was sitting beside the main drop port support building.

When the Lisbon Maru lifted off, on its red and orange color pillar of fire in the warm air. Its ride out of the solar system was not even at the jump point, yet. The dropship was over halfway to the gravity null point, and now slowing down, when the long jumpship ripped its way through space to the null point. It was right on time to pick up the Fleet commander.

Robert sent a message back to the life supporting planet, when it was still attaching to the Tramp class ship. It was a personal message from Robert to the local planetary Duke. The Styx did not break out her energy collecting sail when she settled into space, but she had pulled power from the fusion engine it had been built with. They would only be in this system just long enough for a reply to be sent back, and for Robert to receive it. All before space was ripped apart again, and the jumpship fell through the hole in the universe it had made.

The first stop was the solar system that was dead, and without planets or life of any kind. It was now called the Split system. The "Egg" with its two attached small craft started burning their engines to move the 100,000 ton ship the 300 miles to where the Jumpship had re-entered the system. While the Hobgoblin was releasing its clamps, so that the larger unpowered dropship could attach in her place. While Robert and the Maru were on the planet's surface. The Styx had been checking out and preparing her second drive for long term use.

The Hobgoblin spun up its own Colonial supplied jump engine and, in a flash, both interstellar ships were gone from the Split system. The time between the Styx arriving and the newly attached cargo ship leaving was three hours. They had a full day of traveling before they were going to take a break from the stress. It was at the agreed upon end point for that day of travel. That was when news of the after-inspection results were presented to the Convoy commander.

Robert was looking around the group, glad to be in the main meeting room of the jumpship, with its artificial gravity plates. "Okay we have a fuel leak, and we just found it. Why? And how much will this impact our trip home?"

The Head of the engineering department of the long jumpship was not comfortable. "Sir we think it might have happened after that ambush in the Xanthe III system. We got in a hurry, and the White Rabbit docked a little fast after all of the fighting. The feed lines coming from the main Tylium tank to the engine, runs very close to that docking collar. We never thought to check the fuel levels, after we shut down the system after our last use of it. The Styx had not taken any battle damage. It is on our post combat checks to check for leaks, but it is not on a daily, weekly, or monthly inspections check lists.

The jumpships chief engineer made a sour face. She knew that this was all her fault. "That oversite has been fixed and it will be checked. Right along with any other expendable on the ship at least monthly or after any of the missions' ships reports a serious incident (SiR). The leak was very small, and it vented to the outside of the hull. It did not set off our gas detectors, we set up to detect any type of leak. We are looking at a way to counter this issue. The Hobgoblin was under half full when we left Ltzehoe. We knew she was low on fuel after all of the battle damage she took. The plan was to top off her tanks when she was almost dry. She does not have enough fuel to make it home on her own. At least not with what she has left in her tanks."

Robert had his stone face on. He was kicking himself for not catching this before now. He was briefed every week on the status of everything from food to air, on all of the ships under his command. He had completely overlooked this one type of fuel.

"Okay the Hobgoblin cannot make it home with her current fuel load. Can we?"

The engineer still didn't want to look at the convoy commander or Captain Vaun. "Sir, we don't know. We are running over 85,000 tons heavier than was planned for or computer modeled for the trip back home. We had a reserve, but the Hobgoblin was going to eat into some of that to replace her leaked fuel. I can tell if we're going to be short, after we have done a few more jumps and see how much over the projected consumption line we are using."

Robert drummed his fingers. "Okay, we will stick with the plan for tomorrows jumps. What I want to know, is how many times we can do the 18-hour fast charge cycle on the K-F drives, without killing ourselves. We might need it to get back home, before we run out of air, water, or food."

Everyone knew that you can fast charge and engine, but it took a toll and should only be done if you really had to. Normally a fast charge was pulled from a fusion drive in a few hours. Spreading out the charge over 18 hours of trickle charging? That should lower the stress on the core, but it was still not good for the drive in the long run.

The next day the travel back to New Circe went just like the other trips, the change was the last jump. It did not use the Colonial built drive, but the old drive that took up a lot of the length and most of the mass of the core ship. It did not save that much of the Colonial made fuel, but it saved some. They traveled this way, as far as they could. Before the Colonial supplied fuel was almost depleted from the long ship's emergency water tanks that had been converted to a new use.

The meeting had all of the fleets ship's Captains and the XOs in the one room. Robert was looking around the room, and he schooled his features. Some might have thought that he had many choices, but he only had one. "We are down to the last ton of jump juice. We are 500 light years from safety, not home, but to the nearest checkpoint jumpship. I want the last of the Colonial fuel transferred to the Hobgoblin. This amount of fuel should get them all the way home, much less to the checkpoint ship. They will make contact with the jumpship that is supposed to be there and report our fuel issue. I will be giving the Captain of the Hobgoblin a copy of the Styx's planned route. We will not be sitting still and waiting for help, while they are gone. We will keep making our way home using our normal jump engine, just like the ships have done on the other resupply runs." Robert stopped talking and looked around the room.

Captain Jules Vaun was eye locked onto his Commander and friend. "Sir, do you think it's wise to send our only escort away?"

Robert nodded to his long-time friend. He had brought up this question, when they had been working on contingency plans in the cabins away from any crewmembers. It had taken some time, but they had worked together to have a good reply. It was the reply; he was planning on giving to his planted question. He started to slowly turn his head as he spoke.

"On the most direct path, it is 500 light years of travel. If we jumped from start to star? It is closer to 600 ly? That is almost 20 jumps, or at best case? That is five months, if not eight months to get all the way to the first checkpoint. If we are that overdue? We will have to go all the way home, and you all know the protocols. I also do not want to be out here getting closer to any Cylon Fleet, which might be out looking for us and our friends. We still have the updated weapons on the Styx and two of the dropships have weapons. I don't trust the weapons or power supply systems on the New Egg to be of any real value in case of combat."

Robert had made eye contact with each person, one time, and now was going back around the table. "Does anyone have a better idea? Please bring it forward, and I will evaluate it."

Jules joined Robert as he looked around the room. Not one person had a better idea, now that the facts had been rubbed in their noses. They were so used to covering the distances on the way home that the numbers just blended into the background.

After a few more details and updated information passed to all the ship's commanders. The meeting was over. The fuel was transferred via a hose near the access hatch to the modified dropship. It did not take long for all of the Colonial supplied fuel to be moved to the smaller ship. The colonial made fuel was very dense.

Four hours later, the Modified Leopard winked out of space. It was followed ten minutes later by the larger ship. The small carrier was not jumping as far per jump. But in two hours? It had already passed the Styx, in deep space. The Styx did not deploy her jump sail after her jump. It would not have done her any good. There were no stars nearby to collect the energy off of, to use to recharge the drive. The fusion engine was going to take the next 48 hours to charge the massive jump engine. It was going to use up the onboard fuel the jumpship had, but there were still tons of fuel on the massive Behemoth and Union that they could tap.

The Hobgoblin was not only going to have to make the jumps to the outpost ship. It was going to have to take the time to be checked and pass all of the inspections according to protocols after she got there. That would only take a day or three days, tops. Then it would be allowed to go to New Circe. Only after the HPG on the outpost/checkpoint jumpship had sent a faster than light message to alert the home system that a major issue had come up. The Leopard could not just tank up and bring fuel back to the Styx. The Leopard could do many jobs, but a tanker was not one of them.

Moving a few hundred tons of unstable fuel between the stars takes a lot of fuel all alone. It would take many small jumpships like her to carry enough fuel for the Styx to get home again, and it was not like the Styx could give them a lift after transferring the fuel. Not with full docking collars, and few tie-down points. It would take time for a ship large enough to get to the Styx, fuel her, and then make it back to the home system on their own.

The Styx had been on her own for over a week now, and she had traveled almost 100 light years since the Hobgoblin had gone her own way. She was in an empty spot in the space between the stars, but it had been exactly 30 light years from her last spot before she had come here. She was almost ready to jump again, but it still would be a handful of hours before she had a full charge on her massive drive.

There was an emergence wave that the Styx picked up and set the ship on alert. "Sir, we have a wave! It's a Cylon or Colonial drive. It's huge, well over 500,000 tons!"

Captain Vaun hit a button and alarms sounded threw all three of the attached ships. The odds were that this was a SLDF ship, to have found the Styx on the planned route. It would have been very bad luck, if they were Cylons. The Cylons like sending Raiders and their larger cousin Heavy Raiders out as scouts, and none of those craft had been seen. That didn't mean that it was a risk the command staff was going to be willing to take. Besides, it was good training for the rest of the ship's crews. Plus, you never know, it could have been Cylons.

The radar operator was working her station, just like she had been trained. "Sir, it's the Rickenbacker!"

Jules handed a twenty-league script bill to his old friend. Robert had said, from the first day after they had found out about the fuel leak. That it would be the Black Lion class ship, which would be sent out to them. What Jules had forgotten, was that the Black Lion had been the go-to ship for all other supply runs. Her massive fuel tanks and cargo space had supplied those multiple year trips many times in his clan's past. She also had the equipment to refuel a jumpship as well as dropships while still in deep space, and without needing any space port support. All she had to do was get close to the empty jumpship, which had not deployed its jump sail and run a hose over to them. It was not unlike refueling a vessel at sea.

On the screen at Robert's knee an image of a middle-aged woman came through the static of the high bandwidth image. Before she could say anything. Robert smiled and started talking. "Captain Jeannet! Good to see you again. It seems like your ride has gained a few tricks."

Captain Karin Jeannet had a comment, which she was planning on making about helping Robert after he had run out of gas on the highway. To have him jump first, had ruined her train of thought. Oh well. "Good to see you Robert. We were just finishing up some test jumps of our new jump engine, when we got the word about your dry tanks. We had a half crew and full fuel tanks, so Admiral Franks sent us out. Please disable your station keeping drives, until were done. There are a lot of people back home that are looking forward to your arrival. I understand that the draft copies of your reports have made for quite the reading, again."

Robert nodded, and Jules opened up another channel to the battlecruiser. This let Robert talk but with Jules listening in out of camera range. "So, Captain. What is this new jump engine, you are packing? They read as being Colonial or Cylon made. I thought the Colonials were out of military capital scale jump engines after the Bismarck took one?"

Captain Jeannet was sitting in her command chair, but her long hair was hanging down her shoulders. This little clue was all that Robert needed to know, that this ship had just gotten out of the yard being upgraded with a lot of Colonial tech. The woman just smiled at him over the airwaves. Technically he out ranked her, because he was a mission commander. But it would be a very dumb civilian jumpship commander who tried to order around a battlecruiser madam.

"You are right. All the big boys took all of the extra engines, which the first run Admiral Adama launched netted. What we are packing are some test engines. They were pulled out of the wrecks from the first ambush of the Cylons we worked together on. The lab coat guys were told to cough one up. We were picked to see if a recovered Basestar's jump drive could work as well as the "normal" Colonial ones with our systems."

She gave the small camera a sly grin. "As you can see? They work, and they use less fuel than the Battlestar versions. We even were able to get AG, LBXUAC's and a boat load of laser Anti-missile systems all over the place. I'm looking forward to seeing what she can due, if they ever let us go on an active mission. We have been acting as a test ship and training ship for too long. The lack of trained space crews have me sitting around, as they take my people to fill out other slots."

Robert could hear the pride beaming threw the intervening miles of empty space. "That is good news Captain Jeannet. I'm glad those drives look to be working out. Having five fully upgraded capital warships would make anyone think twice about paying us a surprise visit."

He did not have to say that her ship was the fifth most powerful ship in the fleet. That was a big drop from her spot at number three, just five years ago. You did not want to make a Battlecruiser mad at you, if you were just a merchant ship. So, he held his tongue about anything that might be taken as a criticism of her newly modified command.

Captain Jeannet was listening, but then her eyes narrowed some and her voice went very light and good natured. That was a sure warning sign that she was about to let her personality out of the box without a leash. "So, Robert. Is that a bump sticking out of your little jumpship? Or are you just glad to see me, Query Negative?"

Jules snorted, and it was picked up on the microphone. Robert had to fight to keep his face still, and he was very glad he was on a private line. "Now Captain? You're a married woman. How many grandkids do you have now, a few dozen? It's not that we are not glad to see you, but you're not the Styx's type. That bump, as you called it, is a Behemoth Class dropship." Robert had been dealing with this woman for more than a few decades, and he knew how to handle her. Most of the time, he could even do so without making her mad. But only, most of the time.

Now it was the turn of the other Captain to snort loudly. The screen pulled back and now the convoy mission commander could see the "ship's shirt" on the other officer. There were very few people who were authorized to wear something that said. "I went to Merope and all I got was this lousy T-shirt", while on duty or this close to the Inner Sphere.

"Robert that was a low blow, even for you. You know better than to bring up grandkids, to a woman of my age. So that is what they have been talking about. It is one big Fraker. I can see why you ran out of jump juice. You are carrying something that masses more than a Scout class jumpship. Were you able to fill it up with goodies before you came back?"

Robert knew the last question was going to come up. "No. We did not have the time, and carrying three other dropships? That would have made it hard to do, and still keep our cover story. Don't look at it to closely, the engines are not functional. Maybe some lab coat kids can figure out how to fix them. I was just told to look for a large dropship. I have found one. Now we will see if it fits with what they were looking for, or not." Robert gave a slight shrug on the screen. It was only slight because he was in zero g. They had cut power to the AG plates to save energy and fuel needed to jump the ship across the stars.

While they had been talking the two ships had closed together, and automatic fuel lines had snaked out of the huge warship into the side of the cargo jumpship. Soon refined tylium was flowing into the empty tanks of the Styx. It would not take long, only a few hours. It was just long enough to fill the Styx's empty fuel tanks of the unique fuel. It would be enough to get them home with a safety margin required by well-meaning regulations.

Before the Tramp class was allowed to jump out of this system. The Battlecruiser took care of all the inspections, which would have been carried out at the outer check point before coming to stop at the L1 point at New Circe. That would have been a waste of time, and as the other ship commander has said. There were a lot of people who were waiting on them.

Rickenbacker did not make it back to New Circe with the Styx. It turned out that the modified recovered battle damaged Cylon jump engine was not ready for prime time. While they were still 4 jumps from home, half of the master cautions lights had gone off on the engine. She was going to need her own mission launched to help get her back to New Circe. Her captain was not a happy woman to need this help. The engineers were not happy that a ready source of capital sized jump engines was not going to pan out just yet.

 **Notes** :

 **Plot issue**. It sucks when you roll a natural 20 for a catastrophic issue on your jumpship. Yes, I use dice rolls to help my story along. It helps with the writer's block, and it keeps the writing and story as much a surprise to me as it is to you.

 **Black Lion support**. It took over a year for the other fleets to make it from New Circe to the Inner Sphere. How would you get fuel and water over to the rest of the jumpship fleet? Why not a super-sized version of a KC-10? Not every ship's captain would have been briefed on how or what the Styx was trading in the Inner Sphere.

 **Leapfrogging dropships**. The Inner Sphere is short jumpships. This might be a way for them to move extra dropships when you did not have enough jumpships.


	37. Chapter 37 1 Nov 3048

Got this **:** Oddshot:Still enjoying your story the one part I am having is with the bits brought in from Cannonshops Teaser as when I try to follow it on /forums its to broken up for me do you know if its posted elsewhere by its self as a stand a loan.

Yours Oddshot

Oddshot, I tried to replay to you note, but I cannot do that to your Guest account. I did send your request to cannonshop. Right now, he is not looking at doing this due, to the amount of work. sorry, maybe someone can step up and help him down the road.

 **Chapter 37**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **1 Nov 3048**

 **New Circe**

Admiral Franks was looking at the data that had just come in. He looked over to the commanders of his battle line. It was not just members from his clan before him, but it also held two warship commanders that were from people who had thought that the planet Earth had been a myth. That did not mean that they would not fight hard to protect it, any more than his clan would fight to protect the Colonials

Franks was very tired, and it showed on his face. There were too many things that needed to be done, but not enough support to do them all. "I know that you and your staffs have seen the data, that came from the first Recon of the planet Troy. What do you think?"

Bill Adama looked over his glasses at his counterpart in the SLDF military. "Well we cannot use that base for our recon missions. But it looks like a nice place to reduce the Cylon's numbers and support Infrastructure. I also think it would be a nice boost for my people, if we can reduce Cylons living on one of our old home planets."

Lee Adama took a light pen and a set of images showed on the screen for the whole room. He had to fight to keep his voice from cracking. "This is the area we call Hades 1. Thanks to some computing power supplied by Nike. We were able to get a lot out of the data of the original supplied material."

The image zoomed down so fast that it made a few people in the room a little queasy. It was like they were falling out of the sky in a death dive. It stopped moving when a set of some things were centered in the screen. "These are standard life support equipment containers. They are attached to domes or other structures in hostile environments. These are new, and they were not there before the Cylon attack. It does not matter if this is to support human forms are not, they are the same design. I asked some of the more talkative skin jobs and they confirmed this information."

The image shot up and then raced over the ground before stopping again. This time the image was a hole or crater outside of a lobe of the main dome. From this angle you could tell that it was over half filled with bodies. The image slowly cleared and the people in the room could now tell that the bodies were Colonial. Cylons normally did not have kids, and some of those bodies were too small to be adults. "We have no idea if any of them are left alive down there, but we need to see."

Franks was hit in the genitals, and his eyes could not leave a little form that had a dress slightly blowing in the contaminated air of the planet. He looked over to his Chief of Staff. "See what you can do. If nothing else, we can show the Cylons what it is like to be on the receiving end of an orbital bombardment. Query Affirmative."

That was all that needed to be done. This mission was now up to the planners to work out the details. This was going to be a snap kick of an operation. This meeting would need another hour, but this one subject was closed. The SLiE would not just leave POWs to die at the hands of anyone. They had not done this in the past, and they would not start doing it now.

It was three days later, and the next phase of this operation was about to be discussed. A set of very tired staff officers stood at the front of the room. "Thank you for coming to the last staff meeting for Operation Troy. After this, it will fall onto the staff of the flagship to address any issues between you and higher command. The warships assigned to this mission are the Bismarck from the SLDF Navy and the Colonial Battlestar Pegasus, along with their complement of fighters or Vipers, and Raptors."

The Briefer rolled right over the few groans in the room. The Pegasus had a very bad reputation at the start of the joint operations between the Colonials and Clan Wolverine. There still was some bad blood, but now it was more focused at "the old salts" of that crew. Since she had fallen under the command of Lee Adama, she had started showing the true colors of the Colonial Navy. That didn't mean that any ship, captain, or crew wanted to work with her.

"With our other operations ongoing and ships down for maintenance, that leaves us a little thin on other support. The Bismarck will be carrying one of our modified Clan Lion class dropships and two Mule class ships. The Mules are for split use on Troy and your secondary mission. The lion is being loaded with a company of Mercury II and Stag II mechs. Fighting is expected to be fast paced on the ground. Ground command has learned that even an 80ton mech can be brought down by enough Centurions. The Pegasus will be carrying two Triumphs, just in case the mission runs into any trouble. Each of those two dropships will be carrying a company of Colonial ground troops, and they will be backed up by a squad of Nighthawks."

The Briefer had to fight down a tired smile. She could see that the whole room was hanging on every word. "The Colonial Raptor was able to get some very detailed data on the target we will call Hades 1. While the mechs are keeping any forces from outside of Hades 1 from entering the facility. The two other dropships will descend and enter the dome here." A red dot showed on two different areas of the "dome" that were almost on the opposite sides of the facility.

Captain Linda Buckler was looking at the images. "How are they to enter Hades 1? They can be in EVA suits, but that is not great in a combat environment. Even Colonial made armored EVA suits are not going to offer that much protection."

The briefer did not miss a beat. "They will use the armored nose of the aerodyne to punch threw the hatches at those two locations. There is a reason that we want you to use these two points of egress. Then the ground team will exit out the two side doors on the dropships."

The room explodes in raised voices. It took Commander Buckler looking around the room for it to quiet down enough for the briefers to continue. "The dome or facility that makes up Hades 1 is very closely related to a Colonial design. The areas the two breaching dropships are aiming for are well known to be very high stress areas. If they suffer a breach? This part of the hull will be sealed by using light weight hatches that slide from quadrant 1-4. When the dropships are ready to leave. They will need to fire up their engines to an idle setting, and the plasma will blast the light metal emergency doors away. Then the nose mounted rockets, and lower hull lifting engines, can back out the dropships from the loading area and return to orbit." The Mules are for passengers and anything that might be useful that they might find just lying around. They will have a dozen Power Loaders and a like number of sealed hover APCs.

 **Two Weeks later**

The great Texas class battleship and the Colonial Battlestar floated alone in space. All of the spheroid dropships were on the Bismarck, for the simple reason that there were limits to what the Colonials could do with their jump fields. The "flatter" Triumphs could fit closer to the Battlestar's hull. It was not perfect, but it was workable, and it had not taken long to modify the Colonial warship to accept the Star League made dropships.

This taskforce was ready to turn some Cylons into more useful scrap metal. All they were waiting on was for a scout mission to be launched against the target of their aggression. This was almost half of the active fleet of the SLiE, and they were not going to just be wasted like that. As soon as they had some updated data. They would jump one more time, and right into the teeth of any Cylons that might be in the local area.

Lee Adama was trying to keep from looking nervous. This was not the first or even fifth time he had taken his ship into battle. He just got that way in the buildup to combat. After the shooting started, he was as cool as ice. He did not think so, but his crew thought he was as steady as his old man was reported to be in combat. As Lee was working on his breathing. One of the stations behind him sounded off.

"Raptor returning!" Lee gave a small smile. Now all they had to do was wait for the Flagship's staff to review the data, and the orders to be given for the final jump. That could be an hour or a few days, but it was one more box that was checked off of the waiting list. At least the Raptor had not done an open transmission to bug out to the backup location. That would have been bad for the mission. They had half a dozen secondary missions, but those would not have been that satisfying for the crew of the Colonial ship.

Two hours later Lee was looking at a screen with the face of the mission commander displayed. "Looks like we have one Basestar, and eighteen other vessels that might be cargo ships. I need your ship's Vipers to go after those cargo ships. If we can take out the production or damage it enough on the ground. That will hurt them. But if they lose all of those cargo ships on top of the damage on the ground? That will hurt them even more and for a longer amount of time. It will be up to me, you, and the Bismarck's fighters to take out the Basestar in high orbit. We have to stop them from jumping out and sending for reinforcements."

Lee nodded; this was not that much of a change in their battle plan. It would only take a little while for him to get the updated plans to his CAG and the rest of the Staff in the CIC of the Battlestar. The CAG would need very little time to get the data to the Vipers sitting in the launch tubes. This was something the Colonial navy had practiced many times.

 **Planet Troy**

The Cylon Basestar floated in very high orbit over Troy. The commander was a Number Five and threw the wet interface he checked on the status of his fleet. This was the first stop on a collection run to the outlying areas of Cylon controlled space. Groups of empty Cylon transports would gather here, and then be escorted on a set patter. One that would take them threw old Cylon space, before moving out towards the possible area of human controlled space.

As he thought about the items being picked up on the one-time Colonial controlled planet. The numbers of 100 and 10 came to the front of his mind. His great Basestar had just finished being repaired from her last run in with some Rebel Cylons, but her small craft complement was only 100 Raiders and 10 up armored Heavy Raiders. This was the same story of most Basestars after the Cylon Civil war. The 18 Cylon transports were not even carrying a Heavy Raider or Raider between them. That source of combat units had been the first stripped to fight the Humans and Rebel Cylons. He had no idea how long it would take to restore the "normal" squadron of Raiders assigned to each of the transports. All of the remaining Capital ships would have to be filled first, and then the ground bases. Anything after that was going to be on the back burner for replacements.

The cargo ships were coming to this location to pick up expendables of ammunition, like KEW's and different types of Missiles. They also were loading up new Cylons from the Praetorian factories around the planet. Most of the ships in this convoy had already taken up the assigned load of ores, ammunition and Praetorians. As soon as the last 6 cargo transports arrived. His small fleet would be leaving this area and heading to the next location "down the road". The Five was looking forward to the third stop on his list of locations. That stop would be where he could pick up almost 500 Raiders. He was planning on spreading them out among the rest of his little fleet.

One second the scopes were clear and only Cylon ships were in orbit. And the next, two great human crewed warships were sharing the same local space. The Cylons had not picked up the scouting Raptor, and now thinks to that scouting mission. The two warships were just far enough away, that the cargo of dropships was able to clear the main battle area.

Cargo ships did not have any reason to be in a space battle. As soon as the Bismarck arrived, the spheroid shaped ships cut away from the large warship like ticks leaving a dog. On the top and bottom of the Mercury class Battlestar, a pair of fat almost arrow shaped ships dropped or lifted away from the hull and started to fall toward the planet. While the smaller ships disconnected, waves of Vipers, Raptors, Kirghiz, Visigoth, and light Avar class fighters left both ships.

The Five's in command head popped up as the Hybrid started to speak. " _The Shield of Man is coming. Her sword is drawn, and she comes to crush skulls. Etan E Epi Tas._ "

The Five now was sweating and a chill went down his spine. "Launch all Raiders! Fire at will on those ships. Have the base send up her Raiders!"

A second Five looked at the interface with a perplexed expression half a minute later. "The base commander refuses to send the Raiders up to help us. They are keeping them in the atmosphere, to counter the landing human force."

Now that they human warships were free of the weaker ships, they started to close in on the Cylon capital ship. It did not take long for the missile batteries on the Basestar to start to fire and the Cylon small craft started to leave their bays. As the human made missiles left their tubes, the speed of light human weapons reached out to the enemy warship. The Human fleet was not without her small friends in this battle. Behind the Lasers, and Navel grade PPCs came 40 Star league fighters. The fighters were "only" outnumbered less than 3 to 1. Those were some of the best odds SLDF fighters had faced in many years.

Captain Buckler was watching the battle unfold. She had a very good crew and all she needed to do now was plan for what might happen. She was reading the damage indicators on the six-armed enemy capital ship, anything that was 5,800 feet wide would take a lot of killing. She had a few nuclear weapons, but she had learned that those weapons didn't grow on trees. The SLDF fleet had already shot over half of the prewar stockpiles, and they could only make a dozen more a year. If a few more Basestars showed up, and she needed to use the magic mushrooms to save her fleet? She would shoot every one that she had left in this ship's magazine.

"Fighters are starting to engage the Raiders. Heavy Raiders Jumping!" That was an alert coming from the ships CAG.

Akiua Five was strapped into his Modified Heavy Raider. Not for the first time, he wished that he had paid more attention to what the Eights had been doing during training. He knew that he was not the better pilot, even after being shot down and brought back five times during the Cylon civil war. He slammed his controls over to one side, cut power to one engine, and then slammed the controls the other way. This radical sudden movement threw off the aim of a charging fighter, that was almost twice his mass. With some open space, he jumped his craft. His Heavy Raider was one of the few new up armored ones in this part of space. He had lost the whole quad KEW cannons for that armor, but he had not lost his missile firing ability. He just needed to get closer to the enemy capital ship.

Bismarck now was below the Akiua Five, and he smiled as he pulled the trigger. All of his missiles left the launching bay in one flash of rocket motors. That many missiles firing at once "pushed" his craft back a little. Akiua's smile faded as his cockpit screen darkened and then it went back to normal. He knew that he had just been hit by a DEW, but the new armor had held. Now all he needed to do was get away, jump back to his ship, and reload. He was hoping that maybe this time, they will have a few nuclear weapons out of the magazines and ready to be used. Before he could jump again, he was hit by a clan grade large pulse laser. His armor might have been upgraded, but it had not been upgraded by that much. He had not known he had been killed, until he was coming out of a goo filled tub many light years away.

The Bismarck rocked a little as a wave of short ranged weapons hit one side of her hull. They were not nuclear warheads, but they could have been. Captain Buckler was about to start looking into re-tasking some of her close in weapons. They were needed to deal with the increasing number of Raiders and Heavy Raiders that were getting around her fighter screen.

"Sir, we have confirmed hits on Heavy Raiders by LB-X rounds and LAMS, but they are not taking down the craft!"

That was all the information the Captain needed. "All secondary weapons focus on the Heavy Raiders. They up armored them again! Message to all Squadrons. Go for the Heavy Raiders, hard." She now looked to the woman that she only called Guns. "Guns, we need." She did not need to say anymore. The target of her comment was now shattered. The 8 pack of "borrowed" Colonial made cannons that had been mounted in the nose of the Battlestar, had just punched deep into the Cylon capital ship. And the enemy ship now was in four main parts. Two of the arms and part of the base of the massive ship was moving, at some speed, towards the surface of the planet Troy.

Captain Buckler looked at the glowing wreckage and falling arm. "Well that is going to leave a mark. I hope none of our people are going to be under that thing when it lands. Query Affirmative."

The crew around the command center just started to laugh on the SLDF Navy ship. The crew on the one ship that was called The Beast were not laughing. They knew the battle was not over. And the Mercury class ship had seen to many battles against the Cylons, to think that they only had one Basestar in the local area. They had just seen the object of their fires break up, and they were scanning the local space for more targets. And one showed up, very close to the Colonial warship.

The Cylon Basestar had been on patrol when one of the command group Five's sent the message, that said they and the convoy were under attack while over Troy. This ship was crewed my mostly Ones, at least the Ones held all of the command positions on this ship. As soon as the Command One saw the wrecked Basestar, and who was nearby his ship. He unleashed hell at the second most well-known Colonial warship.

Lee was looking and the numbers of Raiders and heavy raiders were climbing almost as fast as the number of missiles being launched at his ship. "CAG! Bring our Vipers back. Raptors are to get behind the new Basestar." He had planned to grab the bull by the nose and let the smaller Raptors kick it in the tail.

The Bismarck was not sleeping, and a set of Omicron-45 Naval scale lasers and two Sunspot 3L heavy NPPCs hit the top of the new Cylon capital ship. It was as she was still launching her brood of attack craft. Part of one of the purple balls of PPC energy "leaked" into some of the open and still launching Raider bays. This did not react will with the fuel and exposed ammunition still in those bays. Very quickly the 6-armed capital warship was a 5-armed vessel.

The second Basestar had also lost most of her Raider and Heavy Raiders to combat against the rebel Cylons, and to a few of the harder to kill pirates that still infested this part of space. Still she was able to get 250 Raiders and 24 Heavy Raiders out of her bays, and into combat against the humans. The second Basestar was in a higher orbit than the first one had been, and it was even in a higher orbit than the human crewed ships. This spread out the fighter screen of the human ships, but not for long. Soon Raptors and Jump fighters were re-deploying around the battle space. The primary target for them was going to be the enemy capital ship.

While missiles and Cylon craft raced toward the Battlestar. The smaller craft started popping back into space behind the Cylon capital ship and blocking any escape routes. As over two dozen human craft formed up behind the Basestar, their paper cuts started to add up. Soon the 5-armed warship was down to 3 arms and it was bleeding gasses from every part of her dark hull. Taking fire from two different directions at once was not the strong suit for any Cylon designs. By the time of the arrival of the third set of human heavy weapons fire. The Basestar was only a burning wreck, and the Cylons didn't go for escape craft on their capital ships. The remaining human forms would have to burn, suffocate, or be blasted apart before they could be brought back into a new body.

The battle in space was not over. There were many Raider and Heavy Raiders left in space, and just before the second Cylon Basestar had died they had started their attack runs. A grand total of 4 Heavy Raiders survived long enough to jump away from the battle. The mentally reduced Raiders could only keep attacking the human crewed warships. Those small craft had gotten into knife range, and they were able to hit the Battlestar with two small 5kt ranged nuclear warheads. Luckily the massive warship was designed to take damage like this. Just as the rest of the human fighters started to return to the battle of the mammoths, 4 more Cylon ships arrived. All of the human fighters without jump drives had to turn around again and charge into the guns of four Cylon ships. They were just lucky that it was only lightly armed and armored Cylon transports that had unknowingly joined the battle, and not Basestars or other Cylon warships that had just crashed this party.

 **Aero Fighters vs Freighters**.

The attacking wave of human fighters left the great Battlestar. They were on their own, the flagship was going to need her only 40 fighters to defend against the Raiders and Heavy Raiders the enemy capital ship carried. The waves of fleetfooted MK VII Vipers armed with lightening-javelins were the first to attack the fleet of Cylon cargo ships. They were followed by the slower and more heavily armed Avars. There were only 18 Avars in space for today's battle. The other two were down for maintenance, with a set of pilots that were not very happy to be stuck on the sidelines.

The Cylon transports were a designed that dated back to before the Cylon uprising that started the 1st Cylon war. Some time during that first war, the Cylons had started to arm them and made room for 5 Raiders. This might have been due to the humans raiding the extending supply lines of the Cylon forces. Even after the modifications, they could not stand up to a warship or anything like that. But they were fitted with over a dozen close in weapons mounted in twin weapons turrets, to handle any attacking Viper, Raider, Raptor, or attacking missiles. They could have added more, and towards the end of that war they might have. Rumors had started to float around the Viper Crews of a modified Cylons Transport. It was said that it carried 20 Raiders and more close in weapon systems than an Orion pocket Battlestar.

It those rumors had been true? It would not have mattered, because none of those types of ships were over Troy. These ships only had light weapons, and low ammunition because they needed to increase the cargo lifting ability. The battle was going to be like a pack of barracudas going after tuna. Only these tunas were very slow and could not turn on a dime.

The attacking wave of Vipers were behind a cloud of missiles. Half of the Vipers had fired off their light weapons, and the other half of the Vipers were holding theirs back. The CAP was there to stop any Raiders from jumping in from the battle of the Capital ships, or any support from the planet that might come up to defend the cargo ships. Besides you never know, those stories about Viper Traps might be true.

The Lightening-Javelin missile was a counter Raider weapon. It had a very good seeker, but a very light warhead. The massive 300m long Freighters would be able to soak up the lighter missile weapons warheads like a dry sponge being put into a glass of water. At least that would have been true of "normal" Viper launched weapons. After a few years of war and now with production facilities on New Circe mixing battle experience of the Clans, with the Colonial weapons. Now these weapons had a triple seeker that were IIR, infrared, UV and that was on top of what they could do as originally designed.

The engines on the freighters started to come up, but it would be awhile before the jump drives were fully spun up. Like a lot of Cylon craft, these ships were not "run" by a bio form much less human form Cylons. They were slaves to their restricted programing. Because they didn't have "bio forms", they did not show up any differently in UV. The warming up engines showed up nicely on IR, and the backdrop of Troy was perfect for the Image identification systems.

The attack was coming from higher orbit and the missiles came racing "down" towards the 18 freighters with shut down engines. The defending twin gun turrets took out 4 of the attacking missiles that were screening the on-rushing Vipers. The small warheads impacted mostly in the area of the slowly warming engine compartment on the freighters. Only three of the large ships were hit hard enough to cause them to start breaking up under the weapons impact.

Now the Vipers were in range of the light KEW's mounted on the top of the Cylon ships. Half a dozen Vipers were hit and blown apart or had to leave the battle space, due to impact damage. That left the rest of the attacking Vipers to do some impact damage to the thin skinned Cylon ships. While the first wave of Vipers made gun runs onto the Freighters, the CAP fired off their hoarded missiles. The idea was to keep as many Cylon ships stuck in orbit over the planet as they could.

Kat's face was nothing but eyes and teeth. She was taking her Avar to war. She had just gotten out of the Testing and Training squadron a month ago, and now she was getting to Kill Cylon's again. She smiled even bigger as her fire control computer picked out a Cylon ship. She pulled the trigger and her quad pack of 30mm KEW and medium pulse lasers fired. The KEW were "Zeroed" so that at a given range, the KEWs should strike like a hammer on a dinner plate sized area of the enemy hull. For once things worked as designed, and the one section of her target was blasted apart. The rest of the burst made it all the way through the cargo bays, and into the doomed spine of the ship.

The Clan grade pulse lasers cut just as deep, and Kat overflew the enemy ship as it's back broke. Now it was in two parts and falling towards the planet, and it was gaining speed as it was falling towards the planet. Slowly the number of enemy ships not damaged dropped to zero, and then the number of Cylon ships that were NOT heavily damaged started to drop.

The Cylon ships were not dying alone but the Colonial crewed fighters soon were swarming around the remaining Cylon ships. They could tell that the Cylons had Raiders down on the planet, and that they were not coming up to defend the lightly armed freighters. The squadrons were losing coordination as the battle started to wind down. That all changed, when all of the Radios started to pass along the orders to RTB.

When the pilots now focused on their screens. It was easy to identify the massive 6-armed ship on the edge of their systems, or it was data coming to them from the two large warships still in orbit over their heads. The massive wave of human piloted craft flipped and went to maximum thrust or jumped away. They were all headed out to protect their ride home. It would not take long for the lighter and smaller Vipers to pull away from the Avars.

Kat was not currently in a leadership position. She was "scheduled" to take over the Avar squadron on the Battlestar. The delay was only until she could knock off the rust, that she might have collected since the last time she had been on a combat mission. When the data changed and more targets started to show up behind them, Kat took charge without thinking.

"All Vipers head back to help the Barn, until ordered otherwise. Avars, we are heading back." Kat put her orders into action and her craft flipped, and her tail mounted engines when to over thrust. Within a few heartbeats all of the Avars were heading back toward lower orbit. For a few more heartbeats the attacking 18 Avars knew that they were not going to be fighting Basestars. 4 more Cylon freighters were now in the area of space that had held 18 other Cylon ships. By now the Avars had very few rounds left in their quad packs of 30mm. That still left them the use of Medium pulse lasers, that could cut up the thin-skinned ships like a Ltamae cutting into raw fish.

By the time that the second Basestar was only so much more wreckage in orbit over this planet. The last of the new arriving Cylon Freighters were also expanding clouds of wreckage in various sizes. It would take about twenty minutes for the fighter craft to be rotated into the large warship for refueling, rearming, and a quick inspection. About half of the returning small craft were not re-launched due to battle damage.

While the aerofighters and Vipers were being cycled through the landing bays and repair slots. 4 S-7Ab "Busses" launched from each of the Battlestar and Battleship. They were going to search the local area for any human survivors from the space battles. The humans could not afford to lose any warm body's, much less highly trained fighter pilots. As soon as they could, those 8 small craft would be joined by any Raptors that were safe enough to be put back into space.

While the small craft started looking for any survivors, the command group had work to do. Captain Linda Buckler had lost about five pounds of water weigh during the battle. She knew that she was going to lose more before she got back home. That would be because of the stress and meals, that she was going to miss until they were back into a safeish area of space. It was just the way her body worked while under a heavy stress load of combat.

She picked up a handset to talk to the Colonial ship's master. "Lee its Linda. While we recover anyone that might have punched out. I need you to start mapping the surface. We will provide any on call fire support for our ground teams. Let me know if you find anything that is "special". While you are out of line of sight, make sure a Raptor is up for relaying communication. If another Basestar shows up? The other warship can run up and we catch them in a crossfire. Query Affirmative."

Lee was nodding his head. He had argued that it should be his ship on over watch for the ground forces. Then it was brought up that his ship only had nuclear missiles, and her cannons that were not very good at orbital fire support. His command did have 8 HNPPCs that they traded to the SLDF Navy for. The Texas class vessel had more weapons that were not nuclear in nature, to provide high level fire support. That left the job of detailed mapping of the planet Troy to the Colonial made warship. "Will do. How goes the battle on the ground?"

Captain Buckler let out a sigh. "They are on the ground. They are getting some Raider attacks, but right now it is too early to tell."

 **Ground battle on Troy**

Dropship Captain Howard Bode looked out the "glass" of his cockpit, and then he looked back down at his display. He had been one of the first Visigoth pilots ever to take that airframe off the ground, and after losing his edge he had been moved over to Dropship command. After the Colonials had come, his job had changed from "trash" hauler to Assault Transport. The first mission back to colonial space had proven something to the SLDF. That the Triumph class dropship would be in combat in all three environments of air, space and ground.

Now Bode was about to use his craft to "combat" breached an enemy base on the surface of a planet. One part of his brain noted that the Mules were making for a landing on an open plain to the North of him. They were to land in an area that held very little artificial constructions. They should be safe or have enough time to lift off, before they were put at risk. The Lion was dropping her cargo of a dozen medium class mechs around the building/base called Hades 1. The mechs were the outer ring of defenders, to stop any Cylon reinforcements coming from any outlying bases.

Bode made an adjustment to line up on his target area. The Raiders showed up in a gunmetal colored cloud of death. There were so many, that they could not be blocked by the hovering Lion class dropship. First in ones and twos the Raiders were able to make it around the weapons firing spheroid and to the fat arrow shape of the Triumphs.

Whoever was commanding these Raiders was not that smart, when it came to Star League craft. They might have thought that the two dropships were lightly armored and armed cargo vessels, like the Colonials used. That was a mistake, and one that the Raiders would not live to regret. The two dropships kept up a steady stream of weapons fire into the attacking waves of light Cylon flying combat craft. The dropships even were still firing missiles and cannon rounds, as the nose of the craft crashed through the outer layer of the massive Cylon base.

Almost 9,000tons of dropships had crashed through the entrances of the base in a shower of sparks, flying metal, carbon I beams, and other structural components. By the time that the dropship had stopped in a shower of sparks, the safety doors had already slammed down behind them. It would not take long for atmosphere to be thick enough to not kill you.

As soon as Bode "felt" his craft stop moving. He hit a button and the massive doors or hatches on either side of the dropship opened. A split squad of Nighthawks came charging out of each side of his command. They were quickly followed by a full company of colonial ground troops. The ground units were packing a mix of colonial bought projectile rifles based on an Inner Sphere design and Star League made Mausers. And at least every fourth Colonial was packing a heavy short-range missile launcher. They also had the supplies and training to use them effectively.

The dropship was in a massive room that was part loading bay and part storage bay. Most of the weapons on the dropship were blocked by wreckage from the crashing through the hull of the base. It would be up to the ground units to protect the dropship, until the wreckage could be removed from blocking the weapons firing ports.

Corporal Zang was the point man for his squad. The armored suits were punching out ahead of the rest of the slower Colonial infantry teams. He made a turn in another tall corridor and died. He didn't hear, much less feel the 30mm KEW rounds that killed him.

This machine had been made in a nearby Praetorian factory, and it was one of many that were waiting to be shipped off planet. There had been a delay for it to get ready for battle. This version of the Praetorian was updated with lessons learned from the first few rounds of combat with the humans. The left arm mostly held a 30mm KEW, and with the right arm packing a harder hitting 50mm cannon. It still had a head that mostly held communication and other gear. The left and right shoulders hold a skeletal frame that each held 15 missiles. That had been the reason for the longest delay. The missiles had taken some time to be made ready for war. Praetorian 1814 was the first, but he would not be the last of his kind to be ready to kill humans today.

The Praetorian made it around the blocking corner and prepared to fire the lighter cannon at any humans that might be there. Just as it made the turn. It was hit with two fat missiles that came off a device a human had carried over one shoulder. The Cylons were not the only ones who were looking to do some killing today.

Private Taylor was a big man. He was not as big as some of the Clan, but he was larger than most Colonials. That was why the 18-year-old was carrying the missile launcher. Plus, it helped that he was very good with the weapon. He was large enough of a man to carry an extra light launcher on his back to go with his main weapons. He had heard the heavy weapons fire not long after the corporal had made the turn. He had moved to one side of the wide and tall corridor, and with a wave he made sure the back blast was clear and that the rest of the team would stay out of his way.

Taylor didn't have to wait long for the massive walking death machine to come to him. He smiled and pulled the trigger on his stick launcher. He was rewarded with twin smoke trails leaving the launcher and tracking to hit center mass of the Praetorian. The center was the most thickly armored part of this Cylon, but it also was were the controlling bio matter was located. If you killed the bio matter? The machine stopped working.

Taylor tracked both of his missiles to their targets and just as they hit, two more from the other team came streaking in. After his had hit, he quickly pulled his back up single shot weapon to his shoulder. This time he did not aim for the center of the mech. He raised his aim and fired his single short ranged rocket at a specific target on the tall machine.

This time Taylor did not drop his launcher stick. He wanted a better look at what was about to happen. So, he kept his eye glued to the sight as his missile corkscrewed all the way to the target. This time there was not a massive explosion when the short fat rocket hit. This time a shower of a thick jell splattered over everything. For a second, but only for a second. You would have thought that the rocket was a dud, and you would have been wrong. The last act of the weapon was to supply a hot jet of flame to the jell.

A great fireball engulfed the left shoulder rack of missiles. The inferno jell lived down to its name, and it burned hot. It did not take long for the Cylon made rocket motors and warheads to start to react to the sudden application of high heat. Eight of the fifteen warheads of the missiles went off almost at once. These were followed soon after by the rocket motors and then the rest of the shoulder mounted missiles as they detonated. The Praetorian's hull was shattered by its own weapons. Also, the ceiling of the corridor was shattered. It rained down metal and a pair of walkways fell to mostly block the corridor. At least it was blocked for any Praetorian to use in the future. It would take a lot of heavy equipment to clear this damage enough for them to come back down this way.

Sargent Kyle Milliken walked over to the still stunned private. He just gave him a hard look before activating his radio. "Praetorians are active. One down. Be advised that corridor 23C is restricted to level 1 traffic only. Anything bigger is going to have to find another way around. Be advised that inferno rounds are effective with select targeting. But they can cause secondary issues in confined areas."

He released the mic button and looked back at the private. "Go get a reload. But this time leave the inferno rockets alone. I don't want to have to use my socks as an air filter again."

On the other side of Hades 1, the second dropships combat team also ran into the Praetorians. This time the action was closer to the dropships. Two Praetorians had been working together, right up until 16 SRMs were fired at them. 8 missiles were targeted on each one of the tall machines. Not all of them hit, but enough did. The Cylons were dropped or slowed enough, until more missiles could be fired at them.

Instead of going looking for the largest land Cylon known. The Colonial infantry took up defensive positions and let the Praetorians come to them on their own terms. Runners would have to make two trips back to the dropship, to retrieve more SRMs. But they stopped the attack and the following one made by normal sized Cylons. When they did not "welcome" any more Praetorians for ten minutes. The mass of Colonial ground troops started advancing deeper into the base.

The Nighthawk teams had just gotten the news that the large Praetorians were active on the base. One group had been just about to cross a corridor, that was wider and taller than almost all of the others they had been using. That slight pause might have saved all of their lives. Jake was the point man and he watched as the machine walk by, and he was about eye level with the knee. Jake didn't think that hard about what to do next. He just went and started to climb up the side of the large Cylon, like he was part monkey.

The first hint to Praetorian 1844 that something was wrong, was when it's gyro told it that its center of gravity was out of specifications. Then something covered one of the video cameras, and it went dark for a few seconds. Then just as suddenly it was clear and only for a second, the now cleared camera could see what looked like an odd type of Centurion falling towards the ground. Praetorian 1844 stopped moving and watched the Centurion hit the ground. The knees flexed and within a few frames, the odd-looking Centurion was sprinting out of sight. Praetorian 1844 was about to alert the base command center about the strange Centurion, when it did not have to worry about anything ever again. Its wrecked hull fell to the polished stone floor with a crash, that could be heard and felt for a great distance from the site of the event.

The Mark 9 satchel charge was one of the newest additions to the Nighthawks weapons loadout. It also was not what you would expect, from something called a Satchel Charge. Frist off it was not a satchel, and it was more of a sticky land mine. It also was a mix of different technologies that had come together to make this effective weapon. The adhesive was an industrial formula dating back from before the Star League fell. The outer shell was Colonial tech, along with the HESH explosive filler. The firing circuit was pure SLiE Military.

Jake had slapped the device, hard on the Praetorian, before working on getting as far away as he could in the shortest amount of time. Why did he slap it so hard onto the Praetorian? It was not because he needed to activate the adhesive on the explosive device. It would have worked in the deep of space, all the way down too deep under the sea right out of the box. The hard slap was to activate the timer on the sticky bomb.

Jake hit the ground, just as he had been trained to do when learning how to Kneecap Clan mechs. This let him get moving out of the line of enemy fire, and maybe a falling mech. There was not a battle armor suit made, that would stand up to being landed on by even the smallest battlemech. Jake also wanted to see what was about to happen, and that was best done where you could have a good vantage point to see the whole event.

The Mark 9 was not designed to blast threw armor plate. It could do it, but that was not its main job. Four seconds after the crush switch had been activated by Jake, the plastic charge went off. The front of the Praetorian was the heaviest armor of any Cylon, besides a warship. The Mark 9 blasted through almost three inches of that armor plate, but that was not what was going to put down something like a Praetorian.

Besides taking out almost a third of the armor, when the warhead detonated. A shockwave was sent through the rest of the armor plate, and a huge scab was blown off the back side of the armor. It was to shred the soft insides of the Cylon war machine. A hunk of armor plate only one inch thick, but over two and a half feet around flew off the back of the armor. It turned the controlling biomatter into something that looked more like red sauce for your spaghetti, than a brain to control the movement and fight.

 **Mechs outside of Hades 1.**

Captain Mann looked at his scattered command. Off to his right was the Lion class dropship that had dropped them off. It would be the fallback position, if things went sideways. The lion was very close to the Cylon base and at one of the main access points, that was located at each of the cardinal compass points. If any Cylons came out to play from that access point? They would run into her massive firepower at almost point plank range for the high-tech weapons. It also limited the avenue that the Raiders could attack the stationary target. It was hoped that any ground-based Raiders would head out to space, to be handled by the Vipers and other fighters that the capital ships had carried. Them not heading that way, had been a surprise and not in a good way.

All of Captain Mann's company was made up of second line machines. He was in command of 2 lances of 45ton Stag II and a lance of 40ton Mercury II. These were not the same old Mercury and Stags that had left clan space, or what had been built after the founding of New Circe. They had just been brought out of a deep maintenance cycle, using mostly new parts built in the City State. The old second generation heatsinks were replaced with Clan grade ones to save on some internal space. The armored skin was replaced with newer clan grade Ferro-fibrous armor. All of the old Stag II 24Gs had the old IER PPC that was introduced back in 2823 and replaced with a newer and more powerful LRPPC. Maybe later they would get a second round of updates, but right now this was all the people of New Circe could afford.

According to the data that was pumped into his mech from the more powerful systems on the Lion. They had faced about 100 Raiders, when they had entered this planet's atmosphere. By the time that all of the attack force had landed at the bottom of the caldera and around Hades 1. The enemy flying craft were down by about a third of the original number of attackers.

The Cylon Raiders should have formed one big fist and smashed the spread out mech unit one at a time. Not one of the grounded mechs were dedicated anti air machines, and they were also lighter than the 80ton Riflemen II that normally would sweep the skies. Instead the Cylon Raiders were fighting dumb, against the ground attackers. They spread out most of their numbers all over the battlefield. Every time they made a run against one of the isolated mechs, they would lose one or two of the attacking Raiders. They were slowly chipping away at the armor of the mechs with their low powered KEWs, but they could not land a killing blow. The mechs were just lucky that the Raiders did not have heavy missiles.

About the only tactic that made sense of the attacking Raiders, was that they tended to try to fire at the Lion first and then spread their fire out against the rest of the Mechs. That was like a moth going after a bug zapper. Any of the mechs that were around the dropship were able to fire at the attacking Raiders as they flew by. The ranges were long, but whenever a large laser or PPC hit a Raider. That Raider was going to come to the ground in small and medium size hunks of smoking wreckage.

Captain Mann was distracted when a report from his "scout" lance reported in, and he missed his last shot with his new LRPPC. "Hammer this is R4. My probe picked up a mass of movement coming up from the south near AA 6."

Captain Mann looked at a side mounted display. Axis of Advance Number 6 was a major crack in the volcano wall that led generally to the south of Hades 1. To the south of Hades 1 was a large number of "new" domes, that were also of a good size. It looked like most of the ground Cylon combat units were that way.

"Recon 4 keep them in sight and try to reduce the numbers. Fall back towards Hades 1, and I will send someone over to help block that AA." Mann looked around and quickly realized that he was one of the two nearest mechs to R4. Soon he and a wing man were moving at over 100kph heading to the opening of AA 6 into the caldera, that they were planting the Colonial and Star League flag in.

Mechwarrior Kosh was Recon 4. He had heard what the company commander had said, and he could only grunt as a reply. He was running as hard as the rough terrain would let him. His beagle probe had given him some early warning. But now every time he was exposed, a flight of missiles would head his way. And Cylon missiles very rarely missed. He was in a 40ton mech, but unlike front line units and all of the fighters. His mech did not have any of the old-style anti missiles systems, much less any of the new generation of laser based anti-missile weapons.

Kosh stopped around a massive bolder and lined up his clan grade ER large laser. He only had to wait for a minute or two, before a wave of a dozen Centurions came around the bend. It would have been better if he had one of the new HOD's. But it had been decided that they did not have the time to refit the mechs with one of those. Also, his type of mech did not have the deep ammo bins that a weapon like that needed to be of any value on the battlefield. If his bins were not deep enough? He would have to make many trips from the front lines to be reloaded at the dropship. That was just something they could not do. That was why his machine was packing only energy weapons. They might run a little hot, but they did not run out of ammunition right in the middle of a big fraking battle.

Kosh fired his weapons and four Centurions were not going to be leaving this area. If he had a HOD? He might have taken out the whole point unit, as it was, he had to pull back very quickly, or he would have been over run. The latest rumor had it that the new Sling omni mech they were working on, was going to have oversized hands. That was so that the jock could slap down more Centurions with one hit. Right now, he was hoping that rumor was true. As he raced back to the next position his probe said was nearby. He only took two missile hits in the back while he moved to his next firing point further down AA-6.

Captain Mann was running with a wingman. He knew that the new kid, Kosh was somewhere ahead of him but he did not know where. The pair had to slow down out of fear of running into an ambush. All of that change when they heard what almost sounded like a scream come over the radio, before it was suddenly cut off.

Mann pushed his machine back up to its maximum speed. It was risky as they ran cross country at very high speed. It was now time to trust your armor and your piloting skills. At over 100kph they only needed a few minutes to find the scouting Mercury. Before they found the mech, they started receiving updates. From what they could tell, the mech was down and it was being covered by attacking Cylon forces.

Kosh was rolling on the ground. He had been fighting back a wave of small Centurions, and he had let them get a little too close. He had been down to using his pairs of medium and small lasers after a Cylon missile damaged his long shooter. And when he had turned to get to his next firing position, he had tripped. It might have been a rock, or it could have been the dozen missiles that hit his legs about the same time. In the end it did not matter. He was on his face and the Cylons were all over him. All he could do was fight back and try to take as many of them with him as he could. As he fought back, he watched as system after system failed.

Captain Mann could now see a mass of thrashing metal, and off to one side he could see a dozen space suited individuals. They seemed to be directing two different types of Centurions and the much larger Praetorians. It did not take a jump drive scientist to guess that the humans were human form Cylons. Mann and his wingman started firing their LR PPCs, as soon as they were even close to being in range. If they hit one of the dozen Praetorians in the center mass? It would take out the war machines. If they hit it in a leg or arm? It would only be taken out of combat for a few seconds, and maybe lose some effectiveness. They would very much still try to kill any human that was within reach of any of their weapons, if you did not take out the center chest area.

As the pair of Mechs got closer, they could see parts of the mech being pulled off and thrown into the air as the Cylons tried to do two things. One was killing the pilot, and the other was taking out the scuttling charge that they had seen in action more times than either side wanted to count. By the time that the large Praetorian were taken out of the battle. The human forms were trying to hide around any handy large rock. Mann had to decide, if he wanted to kill the leadership or recover his man. It was not that hard of a choice for him to make.

As soon as Mann and his partner had forced the Cylons to pull back, they started trying to take care of the Cylon swarming over the fallen mech like army ants on a bug. They could not use even the small class lasers to help that much. They could see how thin the armor was on certain locations on the down machine.

It took longer to get the last metal Cylon off of the Mercury, than it had to take down the dozen Praetorians. Mann was just thankful that most of his Clan's mechs had been outfitted with two fully functional hands. With the Cylons off Kosh, he was able to get his feet under him. But both he and the captain found out that the scout mech was not going to be walking anywhere very fast. While Captain Mann helped the wounded combat machine get closer to the dropship. The second Stag II moved down the rocky valley, to make sure the Cylons did not try to come back and try to overrun them.

After the space battles were over a CAP of Human craft was put over this area of the planet. With the CAP emplaced, Mann was able to pull his mechs back and form them into small groups, that could be launched to block any ground attack. The ground mechs also were able to fire at any weapons turrets that would deploy to fire at the human fighters. Those hidden weapons turrets had been another late surprise pulled on the human attackers.

 **Inside Hades 1**.

Jason Finan had his head in the lap of a beautiful woman. He never would have thought that he would be here and like this. As his mind wondered, the woman used a soiled damp rag to wipe some more of the blood off of his face. He was back to thinking about the woman trying to make him a little more comfortable in this ring of Tartarus. She was not a human, but a Cylon.

Jason let his mind go back to the first time he had seen them. It had been right after his Battlestar had been rendered powerless. It had been one of her kind that had pulled him out of the ship and put him in a prison barge, until they had moved him ground side. There had been a few thousand Colonial military personnel in the ground-based prison. That number had dropped, and then he had been sent here to be worked to death. He had no idea why he was still alive, but he was.

Then things had changed again. The male looking human form Cylons had thrown a bunch of the female looking Cylons in with the surviving humans. The humans had "killed" the first few groups of them as soon as they had the strength to overpower the enemy. It had slowly sunk in, that these Cylons were being treated even worse than the surviving humans by the other Cylons. When the humans had started to take the time to listen, they found out about the Cylon civil war and why it had started. By now there were more human form Cylons in this part of hell than humans. They all had the same goals, to live and to get out of this place. Oh, and they wanted to kill as many of the prison guard Cylons as they could.

Jason opened his eyes. Something was different, was that weapons fire? His head hurt. It was from when he had stepped in, when a Number 2 had started to rip the stained clothes off of a Three. He had stopped the rape, but it had cost him. This time he thought he might have pushed his body to far. He had killed the Number 2, but by now they knew that they would come back. When they killed him? There would not be anyone left strong enough to try to protect the growing number of weak in this set of cells. They thought that there were more cells and POWs, but who knew if any of them were still alive.

Jason started to move, but Heather tried to get him to stay still and right where he was. "That is weapons fire. We need to get everyone away from a line of sight of the door. If they are killing us, some might be able to avoid the impacts."

Now that Jason had said something. Heather's head came up and she heard the sound of Centurion weapons fire, and something else. She also agreed with Jason, about getting people away from the risk of being shot as best they could. It was not much, if the Ones had decided that it was time to finish "reducing" any groups of humans. Then she heard something that was a lot heavier than any Centurion fired weapon. She had no idea what it might have been, but it was not like any weapon she had heard before.

Mike took the time to change the magazine of his Zeus Heavy Rifle. One part of his mind noted that he was going to have to reload it with 13mm rounds soon. They had not run into any Praetorians in the last twenty minutes. The base was too big for such a small group to control. The Nighthawk suits had been tasked to take out any key points, and then to scout the insides of the base. After they had a feel for the internal layout. They would take control of secondary key points and wait for the Colonials to catch up. Mike was not in one of those suits. He was one of the slowly growing number of Colonials that were not actively hostile to working with armored suits and battlemechs.

With his weapon reloaded he extended a fiber camera around the next corner. He could see the human forms still working on putting up a barricade, with a Colonial military machinegun as the center point. With an evil smile he waved for the grenade launcher to come forward. To save weight his weapon had that device removed. After all, he was not 7 feet tall and solid muscle and bone, so someone else could carry some firepower.

The woman with the auto launcher went to the other side of the corridor and bounced a burst of four mini grenades down the next hallway. When the last round had detonated, the whole squad charge the still smoking Cylon defensive point. Not one human form was taken alive when the squad passed it by. The ones that had not died by human hands, had died by their own hands. They cleared the rest of the open corridor, until they came to another close and locked hatch. By now they were seamless in how to work together, and this locked hatch didn't slow them down but for a few seconds longer than the Colonial team had wanted.

When Mike went through the still smoking remains of the hatch, the smell hit him. It was not the smell of smoke or explosives. This smell was different, and the lizard part of Mike's brain put him on edge. When he stepped clear of the smoke, he saw the bars. This was not a housing area; it was a prison.

"I'm going to need some help up here," Mike yelled over one shoulder.

Cells line both sides of the corridor. But they were so dark, that he could not tell what was hidden within them. Mike felt very exposed, as he walked down the center of the corridor. He had already passed a set of two cells when he remembered his weapon had a white light. The next set of cells that his light passed over. He could see the dirty faces looking back at him. These people had been living in a special part of Tartarus for who knew how long.

Then Mikes light played across a face he knew well. He would have pulled the trigger, if he was not worried about the heavy round punching threw his target and hitting someone behind her. "Step away from the woman. She is a human form of Cylon."

Mike saw a bloody face man that was definitely not a Cylon, step between him and the human form.

"We know, but some of them are not like the others." Jason raised a too thin arm and pointed around the room.

Mike now looked closer into the room. There were more human form Cylons in this cell, than there were Colonials. Something strange was going on here. He knew that some human forms had switched sides to fight with the Colonials and the SLDF. Mike waved for the rest of his team to pass him by and continue the mission. With a few more hand waves he activates his radio. "Home Plate, RC5A6. I have found POW's. Catch. They say that some human forms are in with them." He plays the light into the cell and notices that the lights had been broken out. "I can see 3s, 6s, and 8s in this cell mixed with our people."

Mike had helped liberate a dozen set of cells by now. He had figured out a few things in that time after finding those first few. The Cylon POWs were all female, and they had been treated just like the surviving humans had been. The other thing he found out, was that as soon as the prisoners were released. They wanted weapons, and they joined the hunt for the male human forms or metal Centurions. They were actively picking up any Colonial or Cylon copied weapons that might be lying around. Mike and his teams were using more powerful SLDF supplied laser-based weapons and a few heavy projectile rifles. Things seemed to be going well, until a massive number of armed and Colonial body armored Number 4s and 5s launched an energetic but localized counterattack with a supporting attack of 005s and new model Centurions.

The Clan and Colonial troops were hard pressed, and they had to fall back. They fell back and threw one of the last sets of detention cells to be liberated. This had been the largest set of Cells with many hundreds of very sick and hurt occupants, made up of Colonials and female human forms. The now armored prisoners would not fall back one more step. To many of their people were not fit enough to move more than a dozen feet after the cells had been opened.

The short squad was out of power packs or projectiles for their weapons. All of the captured weapons had been picked up by the onetime prisoners. Now that the POW's had them, they were not going to give them up. This was the first time, in a long time, that they had power and they were not going to give it up. The freed POWs, both Colonial and Cylon, set up a blocking position and they would not leave. The wave of attacking human forms and metal ones broke on their former POWs, like a wave on a sea wall.

The backup control center, that was not on any map of this facility, was manned by only type Number Ones. When the internal systems told them that the counterattack had been repulsed by a massive amount of firepower. One of them decided that the humans must have focused a lot of their firepower in that one location. It was decided that it was worth the risk to kill that many armed and trained troopers.

The explosives had been part of the scuttling charge systems built into the whole base, but it was only used in a more controlled way today. Three levels of the Cylon built base came crashing down on the one-time POW's. The running to return Colonials squad ran right into the dust of the falling debris coming out of the massive detention area. They could only seal the area from leaking of contaminated atmosphere into that part of the base. They would make any Cylon they found for the rest of the mission pay for killing the ex-POWs.

 **Dropships outside Hades 1**

With the end of the space threat and air threat, the two Mule class dropships "hopped" over to the outside of Hades 1. With the cargo ships closer, power loaders exited the two ships and sealed heavy hover APC's entered the two sealed off areas of the base. Four hover APC's entered the Cylon base just as a massive cloud of smoke and dust rose over one part of Hades 1. That was the first sign that this battle was about to shift objectives.

The sealed loaders and APCs were recovering whatever they could. First one of the Hover APC's had dropped off a press team to take as many images as they could. The Triumphs could carry an armored vehicle battalion. The pair used in this raid were quickly filled up with both cargo and recovered equipment in marked off areas of the massive loading deck. The Modified ex-Clan Lion class dropship would need to keep the space setup for its 12 damaged mechs, but the one-time infantry bays were filling up with POW's as they exited the hover APCs.

When it looked like about everything of value was pulled out of the Colonial controlled areas of Hades 1. The two Mules were then ordered to start hopping around with a few mechs and ground troops, to a few of the different domes on this side of the planet. The ground troopers and Mechs would "take" the dome and clean out whatever was in the loading bays of those facilities. Then they would strip whatever was close by. They were under a time crunch, and everyone knew it. Everyone was on edge and waiting for the mission commander to order everyone to boost for space.

Captain Mann was in the Lion sitting outside of the Hades 1 dome. "Captain Buckler. We are holding what we can, but we will not be able to take the whole facility. At least not without bringing in the mechs and maybe dropping the whole place on our heads."

Captain Buckler made a face, she wanted to have cleared this dome of any enemy presence. "What about the POWs you recovered. Are there anymore?"

Now it was Mann's turn to make a sour face. "We have recovered 600 POW's as of our last count. 200 of them are Colonials and 400 are what we have started calling rebel Cylons. There would have been more, but a few hundred of them had stopped that counterattack. And then the roof fell down on them. The only reason we have held as much of this Dome as we have, is because of all of the armed POWs we have found. We found a tunnel system set up under one wing of the base. When the Cylons tried to force a counterattack down that way, we dropped the tunnel on the assaulting train. I do not know if they have any more of those tunnels, but we have been dealing with a frak ton of Cylons of all types inside.

"Are you sure that we cannot recover anymore Colonials?" The warship commander was not going to call Cylons POW's, not yet. She wanted SLIC to dig deep and find out what the Frak was going on. She could smell that something was rotten, and she was betting that the "friendly" Cylons were going to try to pull something over on them.

Mann was ready for this and he could hear the tone in her voice. "I had a pair of Eights digging through the databases for any more POW's. I asked them, because of the reports I have read on Athena. And before you asked, I had bondswoman Bee keeping an eye on them. She was that Three that downloaded on Tartarus not long after we captured it. As far as they can tell. This was the last base or Dome on this planet, that was listed as having any "humans". The rest were ordered "reduced" some time ago. That is what the Ones call, kill them. That is about as sure as I can get. The data was doubled checked when M/V Cube landed at the first dome. The cells were empty, and they had been that way long enough not to smell bad anymore."

Captain Buckler nodded. "That is about as good as we can get. When you have full cargo holds or when they look like "they" are going to make another major push again. Pull out. We will take care of the other sites, but we cannot stay too long. Query Affirmative."

An hour later all five of the dropships lifted off of the planet. The Bismarck had started for the other side of the planet, as soon as the radio message with Captain Mann had concluded. As the great battleship raced across the sky, at 30 times the speed of sound. Her Omicron-45 Naval Lasers and Sunspot 3L Heavy Naval PPCs rained death on any and every Cylon they could find. They could have used the 2 massive NAC 40s, but that would have used ammunition. Besides what were two more weapons, when you were firing 16 HNPPC and 40 NL-45s.

The only site that did not get this kind of love, was Hades 1. SLDF high command had something special in mind for that little corner of hell. Just before the Bismarck came over that site, one of the four specially modified small craft bays opened. A weapon "fell" out of the bay and was pulled toward the planet's surface. A dozen small little metal fins kept the 250ton weapon on course for the center of Hades 1. The massive weapon was watched by a dozen Raptor scout craft, as it fell towards the planet's surface.

The test weapon did not work exactly as planned. After the massive weapon had broken threw the top of the dome, the hard nose should have broken off. This would have cleared the way for the large shaped charge to fire. The rest of the weapon would have "ridden" behind the copper jet cutting its way deeper into the base until it cooled. When the secondary nose, that was behind the large shaped charge would punch down threw more rock or structure, until it also ran out of energy. Then the 10-megaton nuclear warhead would go to work. This was a test of a new class of weapon, that had been brought off the "to fight the clans" drawing board. It had been moved to the "let's see if this works against the Cylons" board.

What was known, was that the shaped charge did not go off after the first nose had "broken off". One of the Raptors showing more guts than brains, had done a very high-speed pass and overflew the now damaged weapon. It was able to look down the hole the 250ton "rock" had done to the structure. This data would be useful because it did show how much of real world building it could go through, without any more engineering. Just when the Pegasus was about to put a colonial made nuclear tipped anti Basestar weapon on the Cylon base, the 10-megaton warhead detonated. After the fireball had dissipated in the thin atmosphere. The Raptors re-scouted the area, and they were just in time to see the first flows of lava and very distinctive volcanic ash come flying out of the still smoking crater. Very quickly a lava flow over a mile wide was moving downhill at the speed of your average ground car.

The weapon cracked an old deep geothermal tap. This one had been put in place before the first dome, and it had been sealed off in the lost past. The larger nearby Cylon made tap had not helped. The nuclear warhead had removed enough of the overhanging rock, that the rest of the bed rock only cracked between those two points at first. These two taps and crack opened a long channel for the contents of a massive lava chamber of a thermal plume, to vent its contents to the surface of the planet. By the end of the day. All eight of the geothermal taps in the local area would be connected and venting out lava, gas, and ash to the planet's surface. It would not take long for flying ash to cover the whole planet in a thick layer of grey clouds. This would reduce the amount of light reaching the planet's surface for a few years. Captain Buckler made a note to never let them mix Rednecks, lots of beer, and orbital weapons again.

 **Post battle at the Ragnar anchorage**

The Tunnel had not seen this much traffic in a long time. How long? Well, the tunnel would not and could not say to any passersby. After the Rising Star class ship had left. The Anchorage under Colonel Bellamy's command was keeping a Raptor close enough to see, but not be seen unless someone came very close to the passage entrance. When the scout's systems had "seen" the two massive warships arrive some distance away from the Tunnel. The little craft had left its station and flew as quickly as it could to report the news. With the whole station going on alert, the little craft flipped around and raced back to the edge of the gas giant.

By the time that the Raptor returned. The Battlestar Pegasus was just starting to nose her way into the tunnel, with the old Star League battlewagon right behind her. Nerves got a little short before it was worked out, that all was well with the new visitors. This was going to be the first time a warship from another branch of man was going to see this anomaly. It was slow going through the lightening illuminated tunnel for both ships. The Mercury class ship had never been here, and the Bismarck only had secondhand data. Besides accessing the anchorage was known to be very challenging, for even the best trained Colonial navigator. The Raptor crew had dozens of trips down the tunnel under their belt, and all of the data that every other round trip that the other Raptors had completed. It was able to make its way back to the anchorage with the good news that the visitors were friendly, well before the warships could be detected by the anchorage.

Captain Buckler was not impressed when her ship could see the station. She had grown tired of looking at the butt end of the Beast, well before two hours of being on that creepy tunnel. She had been studying the images that were in the Galactica's and Colonial One's database. Those images had been updated by the last mission to return from this spot. To her, it looked like what you would expect for a rat-infested space station in some trashy holovid.

The great station had changed since the last major ship had visited her. It had been known even before the 2nd Cylon war, that Ragnar's atmosphere was not healthy for the outer hull metal the Colonials used. One of the major storage items in the cargo hold in the Boreas had been paint. It was not real paint. It was more like a polymer, that would act as a barrier between the caustic atmosphere and the hull. It was the standard "paint" that the Star League Navy had used even before the official founding of that organization.

Now that the two warships were closer, Buckler noticed that some things had changed. The most noticeable, was that some of it did not look so rusty. The lower spike looking attachment was now a nice fresh looking white/grey color. The rest still looked bad, but it was getting better. Some of the damage on the top decks had even been visibly fixed. There still was a lot to do to make the station look safe to live in. The last ship had only been able to leave a few hundred tons of general use supplies. Most of the cargo had been for the needed things, that would keep a few hundred people alive for six months.

Now that the main mission was done and more or less successful. The SLiE were going to drop almost 10,000tons of supplies and materials. That would include enough food and other expendables for a crew twice this size to last for a year. It turned out that it was a good thing, that this stop had been planned for at the end of the mission. The Bismarck had some good medical facilities, but the Anchorage had a full late Star League made MASH truck sent out. They might not have the doctors to fully exploit this capability, but the Bismarck did. Not all of the people who needed access to that level of care would be able to fully use it. It made more than a few people chafe, but the human form Cylons would have first use of those facilities and medical personnel. It was well known that they could not "stay" for too long in this location.

As soon as about half were checked out and out of the woods, medical wise. They would be loaded onto one of the dropships and moved outside of the tunnel. As more were checked out, one of the Mk VIIC landing boats on the Bismarck would transfer them out of the effect zone of Ragnar. What would happen to those Cylons when they got back to New Circe, was going to be decided above Buckler's pay grade. But she had collected a file that held statements by every one of the Colonials, that said those human forms were on their side. She also already had written reports about what those same half-starved and abused human forms, had done to keep the other Cylons from breaking the thin human lines within Hades 1.

The Pegasus was attached to the "North Pole" of the Anchorage. The great Colonial warship was not even down a quarter of her fuel load, so she would not be topping off her tanks at this location. With the reported amount of fuel remaining, she would not be leaving any behind either. Finding all of that Colonial made KEW ammunition was nice. Both ships would top off the ammunition they had used on this mission. The SLDF Navy would "cut a check" to the City State, when all of the reports were done. She was betting that they would have no problems cashing that check or trading it, for items that the City State badly needed.

They would not be leaving much more in the way of crews, but another 6 Raptors and their crews would be staying. That was going to make the few support crews for those craft lives stressful. But it would allow them to keep a better watch on the tunnel, without wearing out crew and craft at the same time. It was expected that the small fleet would be spending about a week here. During that time anyone not actively repairing damage to a warship, dropship, mech, fighter, or small craft. They would be expected to spend a few shifts over on the Anchorage. If any Cylons showed up to check on this place, they were going to get a very warm reception.

 **A week later**

Captain Buckler took one last look at the anchorage, before the view was going to be blocked by a large pillar of mixed gases. Even from this distance, you could see that the anchorage had changed again. For one, every square foot of the station now had at least two coats of protection applied. Also, section 6 of Deck A now could hold and launch "normal" fighters, Vipers, Raptors, or small shuttles if an attack was coming in. Getting them back in was going to be an issue, but they now had some teeth. That would change again when the bay doors were attached in a few weeks. They still had a dozen small docking points that would fit Raptors, shuttles, or small to medium sized Colonial ships. It would not take much for the engineers back on New Circe, to make an adapter so that any visiting SLiE dropship or warship would be able to use something other than the North Pole dock.

The insides of the Anchorage still needed a lot of work, but they had willing hands to do the work. Some of the most productive were the POWs. Even the "healthy" Cylons would spend a shift scraping rust off the anchorage corridors. Even with all of the repair work that needed to be done, somehow even the small repair shops on the dropships found open time to bend metal or pipes the anchorage needed.

As she was thinking about all of the work that the POWs had done, she remembered the latest reports. Over half of the Colonials POWs wanted to stay and continue the fight against the Cylons. As the mission commander, she had some say on this subject. She would only let the ones that the MASH Truck could reasonably help stay, and all of the major medical cases were coming with her. More than that number of human forms wanted to stay and fight what they called the Cylon Empire. The effect of Ragnar had put a damper on that.

She also understood that Captain Adama had a pile of request to stay on the Anchorage from his crew. After seeing what the Cylons were doing to their fellow Colonials, a major part of his ship's crew wanted to be closer to the action around their home planets. Very few had been approved, and that was starting to cause a little backlash on that ship. The Colonials were as short of trained people back home as the SLDF. So, they could not let any stay out here.

Besides all of the 50mm KEW rounds for the close in weapons turrets. A few other items had come off the station. 300 lightening-Javelins had been loaded onto her or Lee's ship, and what was left of the decrepit stations jump engine was loaded onto one of the Mules. She hoped that it might supply some spare parts or help the egg heads back home, work out how to make larger scale drives of this type. They also were taking some specialized Flak warheads that had been found. They were supposed to fit Nike-Hercules class missiles. They had not found any missiles of this class that would fit the Galactica, or the larger and newer Nike-Zeus class weapons that would refill the Pegasus's missile magazine. But they had found way too many Nike-Ajax's class anti-ship missiles. That would have been great, but the Colonial Navy did not have a Valkyrie class warship to use them.

Buckler was looking down at her screen. It was the latest damage report on not just the warships. Each of the dropships were going to need some repair work on the outside as well as the insides. The mech company was down to only 8 machines, and even those were barely combat capable. Besides the updated weapons and armor on the Praetorians. It was noted that the Cylon missiles had improved. They each now packed the punch of a single SRM. Only they were longer ranged, and they rarely missed. That was not a lot of damage, unless you were hit with 20 or 30 of the things all at once. Then you were in some trouble, even if you were in a heavy mech or battle tank. The Bismarck's commander didn't really notice when her XO ordered the ship to jump. It was going to be a long trip home, and both ships were going to need some major support from "The Station" when they got back to New Circe.

 **Notes** :

 **Clan Wolverine Lion class dropship**. When the Wolverines left clan space many of the old Lion's had been modified to carry 10 mechs and some infantry. It would make sense, that the SLiE would cut the infantry bays down and add up to 2 mechs. That would let it pack a full mech company, security, or other types of combat support.

 **Mercury II+** 40 tons 280xl, ECM, beagle, Clan ER LL, 2Ml, 2SL 119kph JJ 210m. It now also has clan grade Ferro armor and clan grade double heatsinks.

 **Stag II 24G+** 45ton 270xl, 119kph (LR)PPC, 3ML, 2MPL, 2SL. Both updated with Clan DHS and clan grade Ferro-armor.

 **SAR in this battle.** If the craft were damaged, but the pilot did not think they were at risk. They might stay with the craft until the right someone came to get them.


	38. Chapter 38 1 Dec 3048

**Chapter 38**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **1 Dec 3048 end of second run**

 **New Circe L1 point.**

It was two flashes of light that were so close in space, and in time. That they could have been mistaken as being only one event. One was a jump fighter from the battlecruiser SLS Rickenbacker, and the other was a cargo jumpship called the Styx coming back home. News of the return of the Styx was on the digital network, almost before the energy wave of the Colonial drive had dissipated into the surrounding space. Unlike the first trip, to the Inner Sphere. This run was not a secret, and her return would not be secret or withheld for any measurable length of time. Robert still could not launch the dropships to the surface to join the Hobgoblin. The Carrier was already near the same warehouse, they had used on the last run.

After two hours of waiting in high orbit over the planet. The special support ground crews on the planet were ready for the first dropship to come down from orbit. Robert had the White Rabbit 2 make the first run to the planet. Robert was still not comfortable with the main engine on the modified Union. He wanted to make sure that Traffic Control was aware, that the Union would be taking her time coming down for her first landing on ground controlled by the Star League. While Traffic Control was working with that, the dropship tug Hard Hat moved from the orbital navy support yard to the arrival point of the merchant ship.

Where it had taken the two small craft hours to move the 100,000ton dropship any real distance. The Hard Hat could do it in a handful of minutes, and it did not even bother the crews or risk any damage to the engines on the craft supplying the power to tow it. By the time that the White Rabbit 2 was on the ground, and safe. The Behemoth dropship was getting into final position for the Station to do her job on the newly arrived hulk.

The Styx's command crew was ordered not to put the ship into full hibernation mode. They were told that they only needed to prepare it for a skeleton relief and maintenance crew to come over. That new crew would take over command of the civilian ship. Those new crews for the jumpship would be headquartered on the Monarch class White Skies. Also, their two Landing boats would be helping out in landing any cargo that the jumpship might still have on board. They also would have help from other small craft around the local area, which were periodically available. With all of this help, it would not take long to get the jumpship emptied of both crew and cargo.

The Lisbon Maru was the last dropship to leave the Styx, and it was carrying the most cargo. But being a more trusted dropship? She could make a "normal" burn towards the landing pads on the space port. Six hours after jumping into the L1 point. Jules and Robert boarded a Colonial built but SLDF crewed Raptor, in one of the jumpships small craft bays. The pair were the last "normal" crewmembers of the Styx to leave the vessel. The White Skies was already attached, and that ship's crew already had taken over critical systems on the jumpship.

When the pair of senior officers had landed at the drop port. They were directed to the warehouse/living quarters they had used on the last returned to New Circe. They all quickly fell into the pattern of watching the dropships being emptied, and the interviews by another set of work crew. They again, started with the lowest ranked crewmembers and worked their way up with the face to face post mission interviews.

The people in leadership positions had to wait for all of the reports to be reviewed, before they were seen for the required additional interviews. A forward-thinking Copeland had already sent a copy of all the files on the Leopard. The people on the planet had started reviewing those reports, before the refueling mission had been launched. After that, then the officers were allowed to go home to see their families for about two months. Robert, again, was the last one to be seen for his interview. Only a week after returning to New Circe, he could also go home. Things seemed to be going very well for everyone. It was always good to have your bosses happy with you.

 **15 Jan 3049**

 **New Circe.**

A little over a month later. Robert was called in off of his vacation, to have a meeting with SLDF command. What was a surprise was that the meeting was not being held on "The Station", but at the main SLDF Navy building in the City of McEadey. He was even given a set of travel tickets pre-filled out with his information and other traveling information.

Captain/Commander Copeland was there in his full military uniform. He had not been told to come this way, in his written orders. He had a feeling that this was not going to be a normal meeting with Rear Admiral Xi, but some heavy hitters of his people. He would be proven to be right, but he just didn't know how many other movers and shakers that he was about to see today. By all rights, he should have been the coffee server for this meeting.

Robert was escorted into the meeting room, and he almost bolted back out the way he had come. Robert had been to many meetings, with the Navy leadership over the course of his very long and strange career. But this? It was crazy?! The center seat was taken by the Lord Protector herself. To her left and right were two of the most powerful members of the Parliament. Then there was Admiral Franks, the head of the SLDF Navy. Next to him was Admiral Whitfield, the head of personnel at one end and on the other end was Rear Admiral Xi the head of External Supply. There were another four senior military leaders also sitting at the one long table. That was counting only the ones at the head table. There were two more front tables along with a filled second row of tables behind the power players of the planet in a double U shape.

One of the front side tables held a different group of political leaders. There was the President of the Colonial City State, and her military right-hand man in the form of Admiral Adama. There were another five in some type of SLDF uniforms or expensive suits that he did not recognize. They were all on three sides of the room, and there was only the one seat that was set out in front of them. It was like he was on trial, or in an ambush box, or something he really did not want to think about. Robert knew quite a bit of Star League law, so he knew it was not that. It did put him more on edge, when you added enough heavy weights of brass to form a small black hole in the one room.

Admiral Franks gave Robert a sly smile and pointed to the open chair. "Commodore Copeland please have a seat. This board is not a court martial, but a formal AAR of your latest supply run. For this meeting we will be using your now permanent rank of Commodore. Congratulations."

Robert was a little surprised. He had been "frock" to Commodore on the last mission. That normally just means that you get the rank, but not the pay. When he had returned to New Circe? The frocking had ended, and he had officially reverted back down to his permanent rank of Captain. This was something that he had heard a few rumors about while on leave, but nothing had been "firm". He was now thinking that he should have paid more attention to those rumors.

Franks gave a knowing smile and kept talking. "I will say! That you brought back some interesting items and information back with you, again Commodore." The head of the SLDF Navy stopped talking and then he sat back in his chair. "I have to say. Do you spend all your time looking for nuclear bomb shells, to bring back with you?"

Robert did not trust his voice, so he just smiled and shrugged his shoulders. He was slowly turning to face the "President" of the board and waited. He very badly wanted to look up, to see if an anvil was falling towards his head. Or to look down and see if there was a barrel of black powder with a lit fuse under his chair. It was in his experience that you got a surprise promotion right before you were thrown under the dropship.

Jennifer Vaun, the Lord Protector of what remained of the fallen Star League started the recorded meeting. "Commodore Copeland, according to your report. You tapped your capital accounts to the point that you feel that you will not be able to make another supply run. At least not without something major to trade within the area called the Inner Sphere. Is this still your assessment of your accounts? Query Affirmative."

Robert was in full salesman's mode, with a face that showed very little of his true feelings. He addressed the leader of his people. "Yes, Lord Protector. I knew that buying the Behemoth, at the last minute, was a risk. It put us to the point that I don't know if I will be able to fill my cargo ships, with the high-end things we need and is required by our mission statement to acquire. I will give it my best shot, but I cannot promise anything. I was asked on the first mission to get large cargo ships, and it did not matter if they were functional or not." Robert stopped talking and licked his lips. "Did I choose, poorly? Query Negative?"

A man in an expensive suit that Robert would bet had been made from some of the fabric, which he had brought in on this last run snorted. When all eyes turned to him? He felt that he should address this issue that the officer had just addressed. He was very proud of what his people had done with the massive hull.

"Bringing in that monster, was an amazing bit of work. She will be in full production mode by the end of the month." The man in the expensive suit threw his shoulders back, and it look like he was about to start strutting around the room like a prize-winning rooster.

Robert rose to the bait, which the bureaucrat had left out. "Full production? I am sorry, sir. I have been out of touch, on vacation for the last few weeks." What Robert had called a vacation was not what most people would have called it. But he had not been able to keep up with all of the goings on around the planet, much less around the whole star system.

The suit was very happy with himself. "Captain errr Commodore! They have taken your purchase and renamed and remade it, into what we on the station call the Hephaestus module. She was easily repaired and then modified for our use as part of The Station. She will increase the whole system's output of refined metals, by about doubling our total output."

Rear Admiral Xi could see that Robert was not fully getting it, and he was being blindsided by the details. "Robert, we were able to fix and them modified the engine on the "New Egg". They used some of the parts from one of the spare engines, set aside from the Yukon to be able to do it. Since we first were able to set up our main smelters in orbit, after we settled this planet. We have been limited to reducing the size of what we were working on, to about 200 tons in mass for our raw ores. They also can only be about the same width of a landing boat. Someone took an idea, about what that crazy Caspar did to the Cylons in that first battle we saw." She had to quit talking as a chuckle threatened to bubble up at the images she had seen of that battle.

"They put a type of thick box at the aft end of the dropship. Now all they must do is load the box with a given ore type or salvage, and then fire the engines up to idle. When the temperature and pressure are right, inside the cooking box? They start pulling off whatever is ready to be worked. The test run was done last week. It had started off as an almost complete arm that we had taken off a salvaged Basestar, and it worked a lot better and faster than anyone could have hoped for."

Robert was now able to do the numbers in his head, it was…impressive. If the new smelter could double the whole systems output? It would be the first time in his memory. That the manufacturing centers would not have to wait for raw metal and ores to be processed, before they could do their jobs. It was looking like mining was going to need a major boost to keep up. Robert gave a sly smile to the board.

When he saw "the look" coming from the leader of his people. He let them know, what he had been thinking. "I was just thinking. That you would only put in some office and maybe some small shop space, after gluing it to the rest of The Station. I had no idea it would be used in major manufacturing in any way."

Admiral Franks laughed, and Admiral Xi smiled so big, all you could see were eyes and teeth. With the head of the navy laughing, Xi connected the dots. "Robert! You did good! And if you can find another one? We could use it, or a smaller one. And I cannot believe I'm calling it smaller. A Mammoth or two would be great additions, to our orbital support base and general support areas. We have over doubled our warship mass, which we have in commission. We need to keep expanding our support footprint, or we are dead in the water on any expansion or replacements of our new smaller classes of combat vessels that are needed to fight the Cylons."

Admiral Franks looked to his right before speaking. "Speaking of support. We have looked at those PA(L)s, that you brought back. And by the way? That was another good job on being able to take them out, and then hide the suits until you made it back home."

Robert let his face fall and a little frown crosses his face. "Sir, I hope they are worth it. They cost my crews a lot of blood, to take them down. Do we know anything about them, and can they be useful? One of my people had a crazy idea about copying them, for our use." He tried to get his tone to go light. He was fishing, but he did not want it to seem that way.

A person in a military uniform, which did not have a name plate in front of them or on their blouse spoke up. It was only after the Lord Protector gave her a nod. Robert now knew what was about to be said, was still very much a secret from the general public. At least for now. Who knows, if it would be as closely held by the end of the year or even six months from now.

"Those suits are one of the main reasons for this meeting. We wanted our partners over in the City-State, to know that we are not holding anything back from them when it comes to major new combat systems."

The woman in the sterile uniform looked over at the pair to one side, and she gave them a slight nod of her head. "We have taken them apart for studying, and we have reviewed all of the reports from your crew. They are called Tornado suits, and they are made for ComStar. Who else might be using them in the Inner Sphere? We have no idea, at this time. We think they are made by the Krupp Armament Works on Terra. We have built-dates ranging from 2907 to 2960 stamped on the machines that the Commodore brought back to us." The woman kept right on talking as sets of shocked eyes looked at her.

"We do not know how fast they can make these things, but Krupp was a massive facility. At least it was before the exodus, and we know it was rebuilt after the war. Over 50 years of production? That lends us to think that they have "many" of the suits. They mass the same as the Nighthawks suits that we use, but they are different. The ECM package acts like a Camo/IR/ECM combination sneak suit. The armor outer skin protects the wearer against small arms, and even heavy weapons like the man portable Flamer. We think that they are almost made for the wearer and are custom fitted to the operator, just like the Nighthawks had been. We have found out, that the parts are not interchangeable with the Nighthawks. This is something new or was so deeply hidden, that we do not have any records of a weapons system like this."

The briefer from Star League Intelligence stopped talking and took a sip of water. "We have a few tricks up our sleeves. Then we have our few centuries of experience with the fitting tools for the Nighthawks, and some clan data we have collected over the years. This will give us an advantage that ComStar does not seem to have. With the items that Robert and his contacts have been able to bring back to us? We hope to have started low rate production of a copy of this suit by the end of the month. They are going to be basically hand built at first, but they will be ours. Also, they will not be as hard to fit or refit to a new user as the original design or Nighthawk suits still is. As we learn more, we might be able to see about working on that issue."

She stopped talking at Robert and turned to look more toward the Lord Protector. "If we can get the funds? Production should be up to 15 a month, within a few months. We maybe can have it as high as 50 a month before the end of the year, or not long after that."

Those sounded like impressive numbers. It would not take long, for these new Tornado suits to outnumber the number of Nighthawk suits on hand. It still would take a long time to outfit the full infantry division, that the SLDF could call on for defense. Jennifer did not move her face. She had expected something like this to come up in this meeting. There only was so much production capability that they could call on, and it was a game of give and take on what they could use it for.

The Lord Protector kept her face still. "We will have to see. We only have so much production capability, to go around. Would the head of Army intelligence please bring everyone up to speed, on the Hoplite Commodore Copeland was able to bring back for us to lose sleep over?" That was how she had planned to keep the SLIC on track for this meeting. She had been around too long to let them think that they could run over her in a meeting.

You would expect the head of Army Intelligence to be in a uniform, but he was in a suit for today's meeting. He shot a look at the female briefer; she met his eyes and visibly wilted. He was giving her a warning look, before answering the supreme commander.

"First I would like to add. That it was that you did a good job, in picking it up. I say that even though it cost me 100 Script, that you were even able to pull it off. Much less pull it off on the first mission after we gave you the RFI. We had put that additional line on, in just the hope that something like it could be found."

This got a round of chuckles from the room, even Robert joined in for a few seconds. The head of Army intelligence let it last for a few seconds before speaking again. "We have taken the machine apart and went over it with a fine-tooth comb, along with the documentation that was acquired with the machine. We are not putting it back together, just in case. We do know that it came from the Wolf's Dragoons, and that it was not built in any Inner Sphere factory. We think it was built on the Pentagon World of Babylon as a HOP-4Bb. If we had better records? We might have been able to give a better history, but we do know. That this machine was used by Clan Wolf, before it found its way to the cradle of humanity."

One of the other suits was wide-eyed. "That is it then! The clans are back! And they are early! What are we going to do? We cannot fight the Cylons and the rest of the Clans at the same time?!" The last part was almost a shriek that would hurt your ears.

Robert was speaking, before he knew it and before his mind could work on the word "early". He had months and months to think about this subject and he reacted almost like muscle memory. "I do not think so. They might be a scout force, or they could be hiding from the other clans. The tech on that machine was not even equal to late Star league tech, much less what it was like when we left clan space. I think we will be careful, but they have been in the Inner Sphere for 45 years now. That is almost four generations, for those Frakers. They have been rotating fighting for each of the major powers or Great Houses in that time. That is concerning, but now they are with the Federated Commonwealth. All of the news stories have it that they were almost wiped out, and they have been slowly rebuilding their numbers. I do not think that if they were connected to the Clan that they would be "Slowly" rebuilding. Query Affirmative."

Both heads of intelligence groups nodded to Robert, saying that they agreed with him. It was Jennifer that put it into words. "We also agree with what Robert has said. It is an issue, but we will just keep an eye on them. You all know that Clan Wolf was no friend to Clan Wolverine, the last time we crossed paths and swords."

The Head of intelligence for Clan Wolverine was not going to bring up that they already knew what mission the Wolf's Dragoons had been given, and how they will/are changing. At least how they changed in another timeline. It was just another data point that connected the maybe two different timelines.

Robert took the opening to ease his mind. "This has opened the door, for me to address an issue we ran in to on the last run. We were close to being outgunned, twice. I was told that we could not up gun all of our equipment, because even though we knew that Star League weapons were flowing into the different houses. We had no idea how much and how they were being used. Now we know that they are being used in more than just mechs in the most top of the line units around the Inner Sphere. I want my people to be able to drop a big hammer on someone or anyone, who Fraks with us the next time we are picking up cargos."

Admiral Xi was fighting not to smile. "To help counter any ground attack. We could update some of the 18 rusties, or we could take a few older units out of the cache." She had agreed with her subordinate. And she was not going to even open the door about anyone "down grading" anything that might be pulled out of those caches.

Xi was looking at the members of the board. She knew what way she wanted to go, but it was not her call. Thanks to the increase in products coming out of the City-State. They had started a major refit cycle of mechs, tanks and fighters in the Caches sites. It was only limited as the repair bays were open, and the supplies were available. Older types of armor were being replaced with clan grade protection. Also, older 2nd generation heatsinks were being replaced with new built 3rd generation models. It was slow going, but a few were being done every month. More than one comment had been made, that the main cache had turned into a pre-tech school on how to maintain and repair combat equipment. Most of the workers were people who were too old for combat or too young. The oldest generation was helping train the future generation, on the art of repairing war machines on a shoestring budget.

Xi was looking so hard at her notes. That when the voice came from the standalone chair, she was surprised by it. "I do not think that would be a great idea. I think, that if we just load up our people with good body armor, Colonial made Blazer rifles, and Colonial made assault rifles and sidearms. That along with the traps we tested on the White Rabbit. I think that will do the job on the ground, in most cases. If I can get some of those power armor suits? Query Affirmative? I would not turn them down. I would like to be able to pick up a few battlemechs on the next run, if I see fit. After that? We can work something out for upgrades on them, if we need them. Where do I think we will get hit? It will be in space, while we transfer between jump point and planet fall. That is where we have been hit the hardest on the last run." Robert was using this lever to get permission to update his Stuka, postmortem. If he could get a few other items, that would be great also.

Admiral Franks nodded to the other senior officers. This was a navy operation, and he would let them work it out. He didn't want to give an opening for the Army to step into, on what has always been a navy run program. This was a turf war he didn't want to have to deal with. "We are upgrading the four Ironsides back into Royal specs as we speak. They will replace the battered craft you brought back. I was told that they might just strip those three old birds down to the ribs, and then decide if they are worth putting back together. I understand that they will be doing the same thing to those 2 KR-61s you picked up. I did read a report about how hard you were on aerospace assets, and I was asked to pass along a note for you to be more careful with them. We are also working on that second Stuka you picked up. It will be modified like your test bird, but in place of the 20-tube launcher. It will be replaced with a 15-tube system with an Artemis system added for improved fire control. I was told that this will also help with the cooling issues. Your other Stuka will be brought in, and also rebuilt from the frame out to that same standard."

A gravelly voice spoke for the first time, in a very oddly accented English. "The Colonials would like to add a pair of fighters for the Convoy's defense, on its next set of missions." Every head in the room turned to look at the Colonial Admiral, who had just spoken.

One of the suits did speak, after a few long heartbeats. "I do not think a pair of Vipers would be a good idea. Query Affirmative. It would draw a lot of attention, having craft that have never been seen before acting as escorts. Besides how would they carry the additional fighters, or do you think that they should reduce the number of Ironsides to allow the Vipers to be carried?"

Bill Adama gave a sly smile to the speaker. The response was expected, and he was not pulling this idea out of his butt. His staff had thought long and hard about this subject, and more to the point they had looked at the capabilities of this modified Union that had been brought back. "I think that reducing the number of heavy hitters is a bad idea. I understand this Union class ship can carry a pair of aero fighters. Besides, I was not thinking about sending Vipers with Commodore Copeland. I was thinking about sending a pair of SB-27bs. They would be a good addition to the convoy fleet defense, and my people are very competent at using light and fast space fighters." Bill could not help but smile at the looks he could see out of the corner of his eye. There were very few people on the planet that would dare to argue. That his Viper pilots could not get every bit of capability out of anything that was light, fast, and flew in space.

A female voice joined into the discussion, and this one was also a new voice. "Adding two Colonial crewed and supported fighters would be a show of good faith that we are working together, to do all that can be done to fight the Cylons."

Laura Roslin had both of her hands flat on the desktop. She was not looking around, but right at Robert. She understood a lot about the military, and this convoy mission was under his command. If he didn't agree to support this idea? That would make it harder and cost some political points, to get those two craft added to the convoy's mission over his objection. She would spend those points, this time, but it would be better if she did not have to.

Robert knew the ball was in his court, and he knew that he could veto the surprise offer of support from the City-State. He was the expert, and "normally" high command would at least listen to him on a matter like this. Then again, he was being offered two royal grade fighters with two very highly trained light craft pilots. That was not something that came up every day. "Admiral Adama is right. The Union has a pair of fighter bays, which we have not thought about filling. The Royal Sabers would add a fast and hard-hitting force to the convoy. The six medium class lasers that each carry would hurt anything, but heavy fighters and dropships. If the Colonials would offer to outfit the rest of the crews and security teams, with the Colonial made weapons that I had suggested? I do not think there is any reason to say, no. That is if the crews have been able to pass the protocol tests, and they will follow my orders as if they had been given by Admiral Adama."

Bill Adama let his damage face put on a slight smile. He had just won a bet with himself. "I can agree to this and make it so." He turned and looked at his wife. She was nodding back to what he had said. She did not smile. She also had a part to play in the political game going on in the background, and it was going to cost their people to supply those requested weapons.

Admiral Franks was smiling at the new Commodore. Robert's skin started to crawl, but he did not say a word. The SLDF Admiral had something he was hiding. "That takes care of fighters and long ranged strike craft for the convoy. I want to upgrade the ships going back. I do not think that we will have time to strip the hulls and update the armor they are packing. I do think that we can look at the weapons and heatsinks. Query Affirmative. I think that the value added by these two runs, has proven that it will not be a waste of resources to add this level of protection, to ensure that they can make it back to us." Franks was speaking very formally. He was not just talking to everyone in the room, but also to the recorders.

Jennifer Vaun looked at the head of her military. "I agree with you Admiral, but I will not waiver on more of the Protocols." She stopped talking, but everyone in the room could tell that she was thinking about something.

"Okay, I take that back. I will waiver the protocols on one-line item." She looked down the long table finding the person she was looking for. "I want two of these Tornado suits on each of the ships, by the time that they leave for the next run." She held up her hand and gave a look. "The reason, is that whoever used them to attack our people? They know that they had lost a dozen suits in that attack. It would make since that Captain Copeland might be able to piece together a few suits by the time they run into each other again. I think 8 suits might be pushing it, but the only way that they will know that he has that number. It is if all of his ships are attacked at once. I will say now. That these suits do not fall under any future protocols. They were made in the Inner Sphere. Query Negative. I will have to talk to a few Generals, but I think that I am cutting the funding to the Hyper Assault Gauss Cannon project. It is going to go to the bare minimum to keep the project alive. I will be shifting the funds over to the Tornado program. I think the scouts, headhunters, and ship's marines should be the first units filled with this "new" body armor." It was not often that the leader of New Circe stepped this far into operations of the military, but she felt this time it was warranted. She would deal with any ruffled feathers later.

Robert could see that some of the suits liked this idea, and others did not. Some of the ones in that last column had included some of the Colonials. He was feeling nosey, so he asked. He had not been able to catch up with all of the news stories, and even the rumors that had been launched while he was gone. "Hyper Assault Gauss Cannon Query-Affirmative?" That was a lot better than saying what the Frak is that?

Admiral Franks fielded this question. "Commodore Copeland. The Hyper Assault Gauss cannon or HAG is a joint project with the Colonial military, and our people. It takes our top of the line second generation Gauss Rifle, and then we add some items from the Colonial coil guns. We have two great data points on their coil guns. One from each of the different generation of Battlestars. What the R and D people think they can do, is instead of shooting one big slug. It will fire fifteen smaller, hard darts, very fast and at one time. The math says that it will have longer range and mass five tons lighter than our best fielded Gauss cannons. It could be a game changer against the Clans. But it will not have that much effect, against the current generation of Cylons. That is, if it works. Right now? They are still working on computer models, and what ifs models out of spare parts."

One of the Parliament's main mover and shakers leaned forward, and Robert could swear that the Lord Protector groaned when she saw the movement. "I would like the Commodore to address an issue that has come to my attention. On your manifest? You have a lot of expensive items, which were earmarked to go to the City State. Why was that?" This was a major shift in topics. It was mainly done as a power play by the MP, so that he could take control of this meeting.

Robert could not tell why people voted for this person. As soon as he started talking Robert wanted to punch him in the face as hard as he could, after only four sentences. He instinctively wanted to irritate the man, so Robert unknowingly dropped back into his Inner Sphere connected speech patterns. "I don't have my copy with me. So, pardon me, if I forget some items. I'm going to have to go off of my memory."

Robert used the second contraction on purpose. "I picked up a dozen 5ton hover attack craft. Five or six were earmarked, as being paid for by the City-State's money. There were two 25ton Sea Skimmers, which were requested by Admiral Adama and paid for out of City State funds. Those are the only large ticket items, that I remember, that were supposed to be shipped directly to the City State. I still would not call that major, not compared to the other 9,000tons of cargo we brought back."

The political toad swelled up, like he had swallowed a balloon. "That is part of it. But there was the 100ton attack submarine, is there not? That does not count the 50ton overgrown Viper of an aerofighter you brought back. There is no way that those small arms were enough to cover the cost of all of that. Query Affirmative." The toad had lost money, when word had come down that the City-State had won a contract to update the fighting units in the cache's sites. He was waiting to get some payback from that lost deal that he had worked so hard to get.

Robert felt his fangs come out. He did not like being second guessed, by someone who had been a thousand light years away from the decision point. "Sir? The Blazers and Colonial rifles were sold, for well above what we thought they would. When you add in the two Vulcan 80ton fighters, that we sold at the first stop? They had a good-sized bank on my accounting books. That was enough to cover me, in purchasing those items. I will tell you, something else and I think you missed it in my reports. That the Neptune? It was not earmarked for the Colonials, but I think they would have like to pick it up. That is, if they had the money? I filed a report, on my ideas about how the SLDF might use it on some special operations. The Corsair was "given" to us as battlefield salvage, and we could not turn it down and keep our cover story. Query Affirmative. It was listed as general cargo, but I must admit that it does look a lot like a massively enlarged Colonial Viper. Maybe it could be used as a gate guard, or it could be sent to an R and D team. I was given to understand that the main space frame is less than 2 years old."

The Toad was not done, and he tried to jump around the blocks that Robert had tried to throw in his way. "Those two Vulcans belong to the people of our clan! Not to the City State." He almost came out of his seat, but at the last second changed his mind.

Robert could see the military members in the room starting to flex their shoulders. Robert decided he had the less to lose and threw himself on the grenade. "I'm sorry sir, you are wrong. The Colonial Battlestar Pegasus recovered both of them and returned them to New Circe in September 3046. She had been working alone at the time, if the reports I read are correct."

That bit of information deflated the toad. Robert decided to push one more straight pin into him while he had the chance. It was not often that you got to challenge some people like this. "I thought that the last six or seven Savanna Masters will be put up for sale on the G-bids site. Query Affirmative. I will be one of the bidders, looking at them. I find the idea of them, fun as all frak. I know of this area in the river delta, that my kids used to like to fish off of. Never mind." Robert let a sly smile come to his face. He was making it up, but he was betting Mr. Toad didn't know that.

Admiral Franks bit his lip to keep quiet, and the head of SLIC was beaming. Both men knew Robert well enough, to know that he was trying to get the PM's goat. Before Franks could defuse the growing bomb. The Head of SLIC took the bone. "Yes Commodore. We did get that memo, and it is full of ideas. I am sure you are familiar with Callaghan Munitions. Query Affirmative." The Intel person stopped talking and with the tilting of the head to one side. He was hinting that he was waiting for Robert to reply.

Robert did not want to say too much more, but it was obvious that someone was keeping some close tabs on him. "Yes, I do. They are a small Munitions works, that makes mostly Streak Short ranged missiles and inferno rounds for our infantry to use. They just opened up a joint venture within the City State to supply their ground forces with shoulder fired short ranged missiles and launchers. The idea is it will help them defend against the increasing number of Cylon Praetorians being seen on the battlefield. I also own a little over 10 percent of the company, as of a week ago. When I get my cut of the profits from this second run? I will own more. How much more? That will depend on what my take home is going to bring in. That is also where most of the funds from any cut of the sales of my private cargo allowance is going to go." That was not totally true. He had some other ideas on were a good-sized chunk of those funds might be used for. He was not known for putting all of his eggs in one basket, even if that basket was large and well padded.

The eyebrows of both Colonials climbed high into their hairlines. This was information, that they had no idea of as of this meeting. Bill made a mental note to thank the convoy commander in this meeting. He would do it in person over a private dinner, later. He wanted to keep the good will, but he also wanted to let the other man know. That the Colonial government and military would not give him any preferential treatment.

The Colonel for the Intel department shot a look to her boss. Then she smiled, a little knowing smile that she made sure certain people in this room could not see. She was not going to make a comment about the note in the report, which said Robert had bought a few blocks of shares of MMM on his last mission. His people were looking at that idea, very closely. If the numbers worked and the legal department like the idea. They might have some interesting options, if they could get some key people on board.

"Yes, that company. They bought a ton of each type of torpedoes that this Neptune uses. No one on this planet had a record of trying to make underwater weapons, in centuries. We think that this would be very helpful, in a number of potential situations in our fight against the Cylons. The report that they sent to me, is that they think. That they can duplicate the drives in a few months. They also think that they might be able to convert their and our Streak and even NARC missiles systems into working underwater as well."

The Colonel looked around the long table to her left and right. "This was going to be brought up later, but now is as good of a time as any." She sat straighter in her chair. "We think that it would be of a benefit, if you can find three or four more of this class of vessel. We would like them mostly intact or in the same condition as the one you acquired. We do not have the experts to build them ourselves, or the resources to do it. So, the better condition would help us. Query Affirmative."

Robert rolled his eyes, and it was not subtle. "If you would have told me before? I could have had one of our contacts order them. They would have been delivered to a "friend" and held for us until we came back. All I would have to do, is leave the money to buy and store them. They are made in the old House Davion area of space. That is going to take some time to get them that is unless we stumble on another one like this one." Sometimes he got the feeling that people thought he had a magic wand and just make whatever was wanted to show up in his cargo holds.

Admiral Xi decided that she needed to defuse this, before Robert sunk his career with his fraking mouth. "This is going to about do it for this meeting, but I believe Admiral Franks has a new set of orders for you Commodore Copeland. I am sorry Robert, but your days of sleeping all morning are again over."

Admiral Franks nodded to the Commander, and he didn't wait for the Commodore to reply to his first line supervisor. Before Copeland could bolt out the door. "Commodore Copeland! You are officially recalled from leave. You will be working with the Colonials and our planning board. We have a rescue mission to perform. The first meetings have already been done, and you will have some catching up to do. Please pick up your orders at the desk outside."

Robert stood from his chair and saluted the group, before turning and leaving the room in one smooth motion. The guard in the other room hands Robert a thick packet, which was sealed. On the outside of the packet were directions to his next meeting room. It did not have a date or time. It just had a building and room number printed in block letters on the outside of the brown paper wrapper. To say that this was not "normal" was an understatement. It was just another example of how this war had changed some things.

Robert followed the directions and while waiting for a shuttle bus. He started reading the files in the folder that had been handed to him after his grilling. A lot of it was historical, but a lot of the items Robert had no idea about. That was due to a mix of him being gone, and that he had not been cleared to know about some of these things before or after his recall. The rescue mission was going into the system that the Caspar now named SLS Nike, had been watching over.

The planet was out at the end of charted space, even to the charts that Clan Wolverine had access to. It was now listed as a failed Star League colony. The reason it failed, was that when war had broken out closer to home. It had been forgotten about by everyone back on Terra or within the many departments of the SLDF, and the larger organizations head quartered on Terra. As it turned out, the planet had an ugly little prion in the local water. One that once the high-tech filters started to fail, it had ravaged the population that had been stranded on the planet's surface. It did not take long for the population to be cut down to only a few tens of thousands of survivors. Those were the ones that the prion did not like for some reason.

With such a small population base, they could not maintain the limited tech base that had been left behind by the last jumpship. The population quickly went all the way down to hunter-gather level of civilization, after only a few generations. By the time that a Caspar desperate for someone to save had found them. They were growing their tech base again. They had stories and a few books, which told them what they had before the fall. It was just that not one of them alive, knew how to do what was in the few remaining carefully copied books. What they did know? It was that others would come and take their people away or kill them with strange and powerful weapons. It didn't take them long to find out that the weapons, were like the ones described in those few books. These facts had moved the books from fantasies to facts after some decade of debate.

All of that had changed when the Caspar, which was now known as SLS Nike, had stopped the last attack on their world. It had announced its presence by blowing the jumpship and its attached dropship to dust. They had been at the well-known local pirate point, near this planet. By this time the locals had made it back to animal power and stone castles, when the stars started to act funny. It was not taken as a good sign by the people living on the surface of the planet.

They could not stand up to a force, which had air power. And when the night sky had flashed with the warning wave of another slaver coming? It was met with universal dread by the people on the planet. Then the massive explosions that had never been seen before, had happened over their heads? The people on the ground did not know what had happened above their heads. About the only thing they knew? It was that for months later and no one had reported any slavers attacking their villages, after the massive fireworks had happened in the night sky.

What the Caspar drone did not know, was that it had missed something, when it had taken out the jumpship and dropship combination with heavy weapons fire. One small landing boat full of people had made it safely, if damaged to the ground. Only 22 people out of the several hundred souls, which had been on or had been carried by the jumpship and dropships had made it to the ground. Quietly they set up a little village, with a windmill near the "landing site" of their craft. They even were able to put together a small steam engine, to provide power and hot water after a few months of being on the ground. The group of lost pirates had not been that close to any of the preexisting settlements. With them not knowing about the water issues? It had doomed them, and within three years. They had all died, and they had never been found by the locals that called this planet home or the guardian of the night skies.

That little village set up around the force landed Mark VII landing boat, had been found not long after the last pirate had died and while the Caspar had slept once more. It had not taken long for the word of the strange village to make it to powerful ears. They had been able to figure out first how to use the Windmill to make their lives easier, and then they learned how it could make the lights work again. Electricity was now in use at night, at least to those few who had the finances to afford it. They worked on the steam engine that would not rust. It still took them years to figure out how to make more of them, but they would rust. That project had not been cheap of cost in gold and blood. But they were able to make more of them, and they slowly improved on their own home-built designs over the years. With each new improvement, brought about more uses for the device.

By the time that the SLDF navy had found them, while they were looking for fuel to mine to feed the growing number of Colonial made jump drives. It was just too bad, that then the Cylons had found the small group of SLDF vessels. The locals had moved from Late Dark Age tech to Victorian level of technology in just 30 years. The Caspar had not noticed it, in the brief time she had been awake to defend them from the starfish shaped ship. She left with her new crewmen to top off her tanks of badly needed fuel. All the while not noticing that the colony under her watch, had been advancing very quickly. They were pushing the boundaries of what Earth had been able to do in the 1890's, and it did not show any signs of slowing down.

While Nike had broken the Lebon Cylon, one of the Colonial ships with an attached dropship had been sent back to this lonely system. The small armed Titan jumpship was there in case the Cylons made a return visit to this part of space, the dropship had a different mission. The dropship crew landed and sent out small contact teams to the different "major" towns on the planet's surface. Within a few weeks? They had contacted several people, and some of them were even the right ones. There had been a few close calls, when they were confused with slavers.

The ground teams had the information that the Caspar had given them. So, they were able to avoid some issues with first contact, but not all of them. The contact teams were able to tell the locals about the Cylons, and what they would do to this planet. A few hundred locals were talked into leaving the planet, most of them were experiencing different medical issues. It was hoped that these new visitors would help them. If they stayed there on this planet? They would die, in anywhere from a few months to a few years. The local leadership and volunteers just didn't have much to lose, if these were just an odd group of slavers.

Much to the surprise of the leadership on that backward planet, all most all of them had returned to this planet months later. They were all telling the others fantastic stories of their visit to another planet. This was the first stone that started things moving on this planet. The habitable areas of the planet slowly started to evacuate from the risk of Cylons. That was about the time of the second Cylon force to have showed up in the star system. These unwanted visitors were handled by the Beast, and four Cylon Basestars would not be making it back to the Cylon colony ship after liberal use of nuclear warheads, capital lasers, missiles and heavy cannons. She had been rushed to this system after fighting a major battle in Colonial space with most of the damage unattended to.

Lee Adama would not let his ship leave this system. His command was damaged and low on food when they had arrived. His ship had taken out all four of the Cylon capital ships, but not before two major river delta "towns" were wiped away in Cylon made nuclear fire. His ship took four weapons of the same type close to or on, his hull before the fighting was done. Still he had stayed as a Colonial made liner was slowly filled, and it made its first jump away from the planet with her load of precious cargos.

It took a long time, but after about a dozen runs of the liner going between the two-star systems. The Mercury class Battlestar was pulled off of station, and she was replaced by the Texas class battleship Bismarck under the command of Captain Buckler. It took time and it was slow going, but people were leaving the at-risk planet. Word was spreading to more willing ears, and more people wanted to risk being taken as slaves. It was just very slow going on a planet, that had a population this spread out and it was not supported by an integrated information network. Letters were passed by a literal pony express to the different towns and villages on the planet.

A SLDF scout had picked up a new Cylon fleet moving towards what was being called Nike's World and its star system. It would be there any week now. The SLDF was going to use one massive lift off of people from the planet. That was what the planning meeting that Robert was going to was working on. Robert walked into the meeting, and almost ran into Colonel Gao coming out of the room with a full head of steam. The hard woman was on a rampage, and only stopped when the newest addition to her mission showed up out of the blue. She took about ten minutes to catch Robert up on the plans, as they currently were. The downside of the meeting was that they were going to be leaving no later than the first of this month.

It was during this update. That Robert found out how much umph, was being put into this effort. Robert was going to be back in command of the Styx. Jules was recovering from a set of broken ribs, which were not healing as quickly as they should. He had been playing with his grandkids and had fallen out of a tree of all things. That was why Robert was pulled off leave early. He was Jules last minute replacement. Jules was going to have to wait a little longer to get his squadron level command time. Robert knew that Jules was not going to have liked missing this mission.

This was a mass lift, and for that? The Hobgoblin, White Rabbit 2, and the Lisbon Maru would not work. Just before Robert was about to say something to this effect. Robert was told that the General Bradly and General Jackson were almost ready to lift off from New Circe, for the first time in generations. Both ships were heavily modified Mammoth class ships. The long list of modifications turned them into massive Infantry, support troop carriers, or mass evacuation ships. They had only one of this class that had survived, when the Wolverines had been on the run. After seeing how well it had done its job. That a second ship had been made at great cost. It was just in case that they needed to run with as many people as they could on short notice. They had taken to heart every lesson from the operation of that first General class ship.

Higher command had taken one of the standard Mammoth class dropships and turned 90 percent of the cargo bays into massive Infantry bays. The last 10 percent of the cargo bays was used to supply and maintain the infantry bays, which were needed for some of the possible long trips. They could lift 188,000 troopers, all at once. It was a tight fit if they were not trained ground pounders, and that made for some special issues. There were not even plans for the SLDF to grow to that size of an infantry unit, to fill one of those specialized ships. Then again, this ship was not designed for heavy combat. Now, if you were running with your family for your lives? You could deal with those overcrowding issues, because hands down overcrowding beats death.

The last of the three dropships that the Styx was going to be carrying, was the Bovine. It was a recently "found" Mule class ship. For the last six months, it had been slowly modified to carry all forms of livestock safely. It was not a glamorous job, but it was one that had to be done. The core idea that they had started with was to see if they could come up with a way, for Copeland to pick up a full load of live animals to bring back to New Circe. When it was found out that the locals on Nike's World did not want to leave there multi lives work behind, to be turned into radioactive ash and glass. The ship had gained a new mission. The SLDF also did not want to leave the livestock behind, because it would have been a waste. Besides these people would need to have jobs, and New Circe could always use more farmers, and ranchers. The finishing work on the Bovine was rushed to completion to fill this immediate need.

Robert now could start to help with the planning. He could do other jobs that this staff was not used to doing. His first task was helping with the recalling the needed crewmembers for the Jumpship and any special skills needed for the three dropships. He could help to explain the issues, when the message came back in complaining that they were still on leave. The Staff had already come up with a list of complaints and counter messaging for the recalling staff to use.

After Robert left the meeting to start on his work. It was not over; this meeting would go for another hour before it was closed. That also was not the last meeting of the day to be held in the special meeting rooms of the building. The staff from a very high-powered meeting had left their room and split up to filter around the rest of the massive building, which made up the headquarters of the SLiE military arm. This was the only way to get rid of some of the dead wood for the next meeting, and it would allow some of them to collect any updated data. That meeting held way less than half of the people, which had been there for Copeland's debriefing.

The group entered the smaller briefing room from two different doors that supported two different corridors. This was going to be a meeting to get the base plan worked out, for a future mission being planned out among the higher-level members of the Military and Key political members. There were two political leaders, and everyone else had a ranked that held the word of Admiral or General somewhere in the title.

Admiral Franks looked over to the Colonial Admiral. He greeted the other man with a warm smile. Franks' trained eye could tell that the Colonial was more visibly relaxed at the smaller venue. "Thank you for coming, Bill. I am glad we were able to get rid of some of the dead weight. Now, I know that I was vague about what this meeting is about when I sent that note to you."

Bill Adama met the greeting with his hand outstretched, and after a few shakes joined his wife on the other side of the small wooden topped table. "I am just glad to get all of these meetings done, so that we can have some downtime before we have to head back. So why did you want this to be so secret?"

The Lord Protector stepped into the conversation, just as the other man had taken his seat. "We want to send a ship to the Inner Sphere, for a special mission. It is not going to be a supply run. Well it might end up that way, but that is not the idea we are working on for their mission statements."

Laura Roslin was wondering why they were being brought in on this. "So why did you want us here." She could feel a hook in the meal being offered to them.

Admiral Franks smiled an evil smile. "First off, we want to rent a ship. We can split the crews of the main ship, but all of the contact will be handled by people who have passed the Protocol test. The ship will also be carrying a few dropships. The second item we need to know about is reference to your strategic monetary status. We know that you raided a few of the banks back in Colonial space, and you pulled out gold and other trade metals."

Bill made his face go still. He had an image of his Great Lady or the Pegasus, being used as overpriced Colonial movers. "So, what is the mission, and what is in it for us?" If they were taking a degrading mission? There better be something for the Colonials at the end of it.

Franks still had that smile on his face. "Bill, we are sending that "rented" ship to Cate's Hold and to have a meeting with a large manufactory. It is the one that Copeland has had some good dealings with on his runs. The ship will be taking Admiral Xi and three others to deal with that meeting. What will your people get out of the deal? You will get 10 percent of the value from anything that comes from Cate's Hold, and we will be paying for the ship and her crew. Whatever deal we get out of MMM, we will split whatever is the percentage that your people contribute."

Now Laura had a smile on her face. Before she could say anything, Bill asked a very pointed question. "When are you wanting the ship to leave?" He was a more of a nuts and bolts kind of person, and he liked dealing with the real world. If they could not support this mission, why get excited over what could never happen.

Admiral Xi had a very still face, and she fired one right back into the Colonial Admiral's teeth. "A week, but no more than ten days."

The opening shots had been fired. Now it was time for the hammer and tongs to be pulled out, and the hard work to start in earnest. It took two hours for the base plan to be worked out in this small group. It was not pretty, and it was not easy, but they did the job. A ship and mission commander were picked. They even set up a sort of an escort for the mission.

This mission was kept very classified, from the rest of the population of the planet. The ground worked had been done some time ago, and the base idea was not that difficult. It was how all of the little parts that were going to fit together, that was a pain to work out. The funny part was that most of the ideas and goals had come from one "Commander" Copeland. He just did not have the clearance to work at this level, to be brought in and help.

While Robert was getting ready for his next mission, the planet of New Circe moved along around him. There had been political and bureaucratic push back on the lowering of the funding levels for the HAG systems on both sides of the planet. It even took some time for the ground force commanders to come around to the idea. That having battle armor for hundreds of there troopers in a year was a lot better than a maybe weapon, that would not be ready for even prototyping in that same time frame. The kicker to getting the military and press aligned with the idea, was when it was decided to call the "new" PA(L) the Weasel. That name reached all of the way back to the time of the Annihilation and the warship named Weasel.

Something like that was worth a delay of between ten to fifteen months, before the first prototype HAG might come off the line for testing. The kicker, to the deal was the idea that one of the side effects of putting the Tornado/Weasels suits into production. It was that they might be able to make a stealth type of armor, for the first time on New Circe. It would not be as good as the incredible Null Signature System, or the Chameleon Light Polarization Shield, that was built into the Exterminators and Spector mechs. But they could not make any more of those two systems anyway.

Now it looked like it was a step in the right direction, to be able to reproduce those systems at least in a limited amount. It would take years to work out all the issues and possibilities, but it was a new idea that had come to this planet. The increase in resources that the Colonials, and then what Copeland had brought back were fueling a flood of new ideas. They also now had a slowly growing population to support those ideas or materials that could support some of those new ideas to develop. Most of it was still at the hand building phase. But it was building up, if just very slowly.

 **Notes** :

 **Tornado suits**. Even if something the size of Krupp can only make 1 suit a week. That would let them field almost 1500 of them by this time. Well minus any combat losses, which they might have over the production life.

 **Rear Admiral Xi** : Yes, she got a promotion also. And they needed Copeland out of the way for a while.

 **Hyper Assault Gauss Cannon** : You have got to love the HAG 20, this is a prototype that starts as a HAG 15. The HAG had to start somewhere before they got it to work, and then they came up with the rest of the line of weapons.

 **Other new weapons for MMM and New Circe**. Just bumping them up the tech tree a little, for both of them. This Clan has a small population, so they need examples to really make any new things quickly, and the same is true of MMM compared to what the Great Houses can do. Knowing it can be done, with an example in your hands is more than half the battle.

 **Using a Battlestar to move other ships** : Nike kind of poisoned that well, when she called out the Pegasus when it was sent out to help get her back to New Circe. Sometimes connecting all the dots or letting someone in on an inside joke, is not a good thing. Nike is anything but subtle, when it comes to dealing with humans.


	39. Chapter 39 22 Jan 3049

**Chapter 39**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **22 Jan 3049 Zephyr's run**

 **New Circe**

Colonel Felix Gaeta looked around his command with pride. There was a meeting going on at one end of the command center, that was made up of mid-level parts of his CIC staff. The newest modification to this ship had been the additions of the 7th and 8th drop collar. That hadn't worked out as well as hoped, after they had been first installed on the Colonial made ship. They had just failed the last round of testing, and his crews were finishing up the required repairs those tests had caused. All of the collars were spread out forward of the great spinning living area ring and going towards the pointed nose of the ship. Those two drop collars would have to be fixed and fully operational, before they started their next mission. They were not planning to be used, but they needed to be operational. A jumpship with a quarter of its capacity offline, would draw a lot of attention. It would be kind of like being seen with an arm in a cast, while you walked down the street. It is just something that is noticed, and more importantly remembered.

Felix was proud, and at the same time worried about the upcoming mission. He had been pulled into a meeting with both "The President" and "The Admiral" four days ago. It had been such a short notice meeting, that they had sent a Raptor to bring him down for it. That was when he had been told that he had been rented out to the SLDF Navy, again. He would be in command of the ship, but the overall mission was under the SLDF Navy command. As he watched on a screen mounted high over the center of his command center. The "Mission Commander" and her staff were arriving on his ship, with her own ship. He watched them successfully dock to one of the open collars as smooth as glass, and Felix could not help but be impressed with how smoothly the small ship had attached to his craft.

They were being carried by what the locals called a K1 class drop shuttle. The small ship was attached between a Lion and an Elephant class dropship. On the other side of his ship, were another Lion and a Cargo King type dropship. The last dropship had been found by one of the SLDF ships many years ago. It had been dead in space, in the Kesai system. It was a lot of firepower to be carrying around by a civilian "jumpship". That was not all of the assigned lift, which was supported by 400 additional crew and support staff living in the habitat ring. Only about a third of the total population on this mission were from the Colonial City State. He wished it was a higher number, but so few had passed "The Protocol" tests that it was impossible. Still only about a dozen Colonials on this ship had passed all those very painful tests.

Felix was lost in thought, when the hatch to the Bridge slides open. Felix looked up and saw the mission commander enter the command center. "Admiral Xi. Nice to see you, again. You are the last ship, and according to my orders. This is the time that you will be briefing me on our mission statement and detailed orders."

Felix's back was ramrod straight, as he spoke very formally to his mission commander. Felix pointed to a small room off to one side of the very public CIC. Xi just nodded her head and started to walk to the side room.

When the metal door was closed behind the pair, Xi turned to look at the ship's commander. "Colonel Gaeta. We are going to the Inner Sphere. The first part of the mission is to take me to the Duniashire system. We are to try to work out a treaty, details that are only cleared to your senior political leadership and mine. When I am done, we will move on to Cate's Hold. At a certain time, you will take me to rendezvous with a SLDF Navy escort. Then you will take your ship back to Cate's Hold and stay at the jump point of that system. When the mission to Cate's Hold is done, as dictated by the landing force commander? You will collect your dropships, and then you will take a least time course back to New Circe." She passed over a data pad that had classification markers slapped on all of the sides. This device would have a more complete and detailed set of orders, with signature blocks filled out to prove that the orders were valid.

Felix was just looking at the woman, after taking the offered data pad from her offered hand. He had known some of this information from the private meeting with The Admiral and The President. "Thank you, Admiral Xi, but I thought that Colonial ships were not allowed that close to the Inner Sphere. It has something to do with the risk of the discovery of our type of jump drive."

Admiral Xi smiled at the dusky skin man. "Yes Colonel, but that rule is being put on hold. It was after all of the testing of your ship and the modified mobile HPG, which you started carrying a few months ago. We have worked out a way to just have the HPG send an energy wave to the next system, at a set time before you jump in. To anyone watching and with "normal" systems that can detect an E-wave. It should look like your ship has made a short jump of between one and ten light years. To mitigate the risks, we will only be going to those two inhabited systems I have told you about. All other jump points will be to open space and not near a star. We will not even be stopping by systems that we know are devoid of life on this trip."

Felix nodded his head in understanding. This explained some of the test that his ship had been doing for the last six months, between missions to recover high tech trash in the local area. "I wish that I had been brought into the loop, about the reasons for those tests." Felix did not notice, but his hand drops to his new leg and started to lightly scratch it.

Xi had a tight lip look. She had been in Felix's shoes before, and she had hated being kept in the dark about the reason for a given seemingly useless mission. "That was not my call Colonel. Your ship also has the latest modification of your current jump drives, with the most updated computer support for it. I can tell you, that after this mission. Your ship will be going back into a deep repair cycle. What the big brains will learn on this trip, will take us one step closer to what they have been calling "Super Jump" technology over the last few years. That is, if we do not have any major engineering issues of any kind. Are we ready to go? Query Affirmative?" Xi felt like it was time to remind the ship's commander that she was in charge of this mission, and not him.

Felix felt his spine get a little straighter, at the command tone she had used on him. "We are ready to leave, whenever you give the orders ma'am. Our updated computers will let us make the trip pretty quickly. All I need is the course, and we are on our way."

They did not leave this system that soon. The K1C had not held that many people, and they would not be staying on the clan made craft, while they made the move from New Circe. They all would have rooms on the great ring, which spun around the needle like main body of the ship. Then they had to wait for the star system's Traffic Control to clear them. It would not be good for anyone to have a jump field interfere with a ship that was coming in, and Traffic Control ran a very tight ship. On the way back? They would get an entry point and time from the "outpost" ships, for them to arrive at a "Parking Spot". If they missed one of the "outpost" ships. They would have to use one of the "normal" jump points in this star system. Three hours after Admiral Xi and the select members of her staff had attached to the oddly shaped Colonial ship, it disappeared from the New Circe system.

The Zephyr was not the Styx. This massive ship was using the engine that her builders had intended for her to use. She was able to make the trip extremely fast, and it was only a 3-week trip for the newer ship. The data for the end jump locations had been pulled from past resupply missions, and the massive amount of data that Copland had gathered on his trips back and forth. Also, they did not have to stay near a star to provide power and to allow the engines to cool down. The ship also did not take any "dog legs" between its two main ports. The path had been plotted out to be as straight as possible, between New Circe and Duniashire.

 **Helios Beta**

Henry "HH" Hewitt rubbed the stubble growing on his face and looked in the mirror. He was seeing too much white in it, for a man who was only 32. War has a way of ageing a person faster than any other time. He had been the youngest special mission ship's commander for Colonial Intelligence. CI commanded very few "warships" and those ships were a very closely held secret. Even Hewitt did not know how many warships belonged to CI before the Cylons had attacked.

His girl was an Orion class Pocket Battlestar that was listed as being scrapped not long after the end of the first Cylon War. She had been flying under the name of Ogygia for the last decade, as far as HH knew. After undergoing her last modification cycle, she could pack a 20 Viper squadron and 6 Raptors for long term missions. She still packed a dozen primary guns that had been pulled from some Jupiter class gun turrets to replace her old worn out weapons. Her six pack of missiles silos were taken from the Valkyrie class of Battlestar. She also had the latest in spying and observation technology that the Colonial Intelligence agency could buy.

HH snorted, as he thought about his ship. Even with all of that technology, she had not seen the Cylons coming before the mushroom clouds were rising over Colonial cities. She had been hunting pirates around galactic north of Helios Gamma for eight months, before the Cylons came knocking. By the time that she knew about the attack, it was already over. HH had try to do what he could, but there was only so much that his one ship could do. As a twist of fate, the criminals she had been hunting ever since the 1st Cylon war had ended, had turned into her only allies.

HH had been able to keep his ship fighting, if only by a gray hair of his chinny chin, chin. She still had 150 people living in the ship, but "only" 60 had been left of her original crew. They had to convert a crew bunk room into a nursery and school a few months ago. He still had 20 Vipers in his launch tubes. Just now they were a mix of Mk Vii, and Vs, but only 6 could fly, in an emergency. The rest needed parts that had been taken off to keep the others flying.

The same was true of her 6 Raptors, now only 2 of them were able to fly and he was short missiles and decoys for those two. Fuel had also been a recurring issue, but thanks to her "pirate" contacts. She had been able to keep mostly full tanks after a few very close calls. That is until the Cylons found that one group while they were off loading fuel from a wreck, and they had been wiped out by the patrolling Basestar. Luckily that had only been a few months ago, so fuel was not that much of an issue right now. That was thanks to lessons learned over the last few years.

As HH pulled his last razor over his grey and black stubble, his eyes were drawn to movement behind him. He gave a smile as his "wife" and ship's nurse left his cabin, to get ready to start her day. She was a replacement, which had been working for a pirate/smuggling group he had been tracking before the Cylon attack. She was the replacement for the ship's new ships medical officer, who turned out to be a Number 4 Cylon. He had blown that Cylon out an airlock. HH had been lucky, and that he had not trusted the new crewmember. CI crews took a long time to trust "new" crewmembers, and not one person on his ship had "known" the new saw bones. When he had tried to upload CNP software onto his ship's main computers. He had been put in one of the extensive brig/interrogation rooms, that the ship had been fitted with years ago.

HH had kept the saboteur alive, even under the threat of mutiny after they had found out about the Cylon attacks. CI had a lot of tricks on getting information from an unwilling person, without killing them. It had proven a gold mine of information, and they had found out that it was not a human traitor but a human form Cylon. When they had stopped the third suicide attempt, of the self-number 4. HH had decided that they had gotten all they could from the human form Cylon. HH had called a full staff meeting, and after a few hours. It was decided that the Cylon had no idea where they were, or what they had been doing for the last few months.

It took three days to get everything ready for them to "kill" the Cylon. They used a little stage craft to make the Cylon think that the Ogygia was breaking up. The crew had a great time setting up the little game, and it was a major boost to morale. The Cylon had not enjoyed getting blown out an airlock, but the crew had a great time. They thought that the little "fire" air mask might have added 3 or maybe 4 minutes to the Number 4's life before he "died".

They had been gathering data about what the Cylons were doing, and occasionally they would pop the stray Cylon Raider, Heavy Raider, and the random Transport that got to close to them. But all of that combat and time without seeing a shipyard was wearing them out. He had no idea how much longer; he would be able to keep this crap up.

Hewitt entered the command center of his ship about half an hour before he was "scheduled" to start his shift. Sometimes he would arrive an hour early or a few hours early. Now that he had "a wife". He had started to at least stay off of the bridge for half a day. He looked around to the few stations around him. "Okay anything happened while I was getting some sleep."

Morton Deyo made a snort. "If you were just getting some sleep, I'm a cannon round." Morton's cabin shared a wall with HH, and it was a thin wall.

HH could only give a twinkle eyed smile back to his XO. He didn't say anything for a few seconds and then he tilted his head. He wanted an answer to his question, and the time was over for playing games.

Deyo used his chin to point to one of the high mounted screens. "We picked up a spike in Cylon band transmissions out by Troy. We are too far out to pick up anything definite, but we picked up some heavy weapons fire, including a single major nuclear detonation. Things have been quiet for a few hours now."

HH had heard a briefing like this a few dozen times, since the war had started. "Do you think it is more of those Cylon on Cylon attacks? Or do you think that they drop one of the Gods firecrackers on some of our people?" He had no idea why the Cylons had started killing each other, and he did not care. If the Cylons were killing other Cylons? That was just fewer Cylons killing his people.

Deyo gave a shoulder shrug that was the only answer he could give. HH was looking at the data, and then he looked over to his ship's fuel state. "XO plot a stealth approach to Troy. We might as well see what the Frak is going on."

 **Two days later Planet Troy.**

HH was looking at the data coming in. They had spent the last 36 hours making micro jumps towards this planet. At the close of the first day of traveling, they had sent a Raptor to get a closer look at the planet. When all of the data came back, and they could see the orbital wreckage. They had started making faster micro jumps toward the battle site, but always on the lookout for any Cylons that might be lying in wait to kill them.

Now that they were in orbit over the planet, they could see what had happened to the surface below them. Both of his Raptors had launched to see what they could find on two different parts of some Cylon Freighters floating near the warship. All HH could tell was that the area around a place called Hades 1, was nothing but a lava lake that was supplying no less than 4 major rivers and a dozen smaller red, orange, and black streams running away from the fire lake. A massive dust cloud was spreading out from the Lava Lake and half a dozen other major volcanos in the nearby area. HH ordered the remaining Vipers to scan the area around the planet. He wanted to collect as much data as they could. But for the life of him, he had no idea what had happened.

When the second Cylon scout had popped in, and it had taken too long to shoot it down. HH ordered all of his craft to return. Most had been collecting data, but his Raptors had been collecting supplies from the wrecked transports. They needed to leave this area, before more Cylons showed up. A few Raiders and Heavy Raiders, he could handle. A Basestar was not on the list of Cylon units that he thought that he could take care of and lived to tell about it.

Early the next day, HH looked around the room that had been turned into a private meeting room by his crew. "Okay what do we know, what do we think, and what is a wild Fraking guess."

Deyo looked at his boss. "Someone from the Colonial military launched some kind of attack on Troy, and they targeted Hades 1 for special attention. We recovered a nose and tail from two different Vipers. Both were Mk VIIs, but they were not built in any planet under the Colonial Flag. We think they might have been made on a Mercury class Battlestar, but we are not sure. We also recovered a part of a Raptor, which we think is a Cylon copy and not built in Colonial space. We looked for other parts of the Raptor, but we only found the one wing."

HH looked to the head of his supply department. He had been a pirate before the war, but he could work magic when it came to getting supplies of any kind. "We recovered 4 transport modules from what remains of over twenty transports. Some of the weapons damage looks to be KEWs and missiles." John didn't say anything for a second. "We also have seen damage, which looks to have been explosively melted."

HH could see the group start to get their feet back under them. "Well, Colonial military? Where have they been? Why have they waited until now to attack? And why did they go after Troy? Why not one of the major planets?"

Deyo locked eyes with his boss. "Maybe they have just started attacking major outposts. We had that issue over Caprica, and a few other planets that we found a couple of years ago. We also have been getting the odd reports about wrecked Cylon ships in places that no Colonial had been. We have been thinking that it was all caused by Cylons killing Cylons. What if it was not the case? Maybe we are not alone."

HH knew what his XO was going to say, just like the XO knew what HH was going to say. "If they are Colonial? Where have they been hiding all of this time?"

Deyo took a deep breath. "Ragnar?" That started the whole room to go crazy. This was not the first time Ragnar had been brought up.

The Ogygia had picked up the message from Adama, but by the time they had been able to get to Ragnar. They had not been able to get that close to the gas giant. The area was covered by over a dozen Basestars and Raiders thick enough to walk around the planet. Some of the capital ships had visibly been damaged. They also had detected the remains of Viper MK VIIs and some older MK IIs, of all things floating out from this planet. They had been back to that planet every few weeks, for the first year. They had been able to recover some Viper parts, before HH decided it was too much of a risk to keep stopping by.

Henry nodded his head. "Ragnar. I think it's time to pay that Fraking place a visit, again. We will continue as planned. But when we reach our planned end, we will just add one more jump. When we do? I want all of the kids on the two Raptors. If one of those two birds go down, I want to know about it right the Frak then. I should use one of them to do our scouting, but with the Create group gone. I don't have a group that I would trust with our kids."

 **Ragnar tunnel**.

The Raptor was keeping an eye out, while staying hidden within the safe part of the gas giant. They had been on shift for almost 5 hours, and they had 3 more to do before they would be relieved in this hiding position. They were supposed to be working on a scan satellite to do this kind of work, but getting the data back to the Anchorage was causing an issue. Right now, the only way to do that, was to lay a few thousand miles of fiber optics lines between the two locations. That was out of the question, and borderline crazy.

The pilot hoped that they would find away, somehow. Because this task was so boring, that it was a risk that scout crews would lose their edge. There was talk about reducing the scout missions for only 4 hours on station. That was going to be an issue, all by itself. It was a two-hour trip down the tunnel each way. That was going to be an issue with the limited number of Raptors and crews. After the Battle of Troy. It was decided that not having a scout posted was too much of a risk for the Anchorage. That was why the Pilot and EO were out and exposed to any Cylons that might be around. So, they sat behind the first sharp corner of the tunnel. A great pillar of lightening encrusted cloud was between the Raptor and the "opening" of the tunnel.

The pilot about jumped out of her skin almost between eye blinks. A rounded nose of a ship started to come into the tunnel. "Holy Frak. Foot! Wake THE Frak up.! Why didn't you tell me something was coming?"

Foot was sitting up wide eyed. "My scopes are clear. Wait, I'm getting something! But it's not clear!"

HH was almost on his toes as he walked around his command center. He made eye contact with his XO and walked over. In a low voice, almost thinking that the enemy might hear them threw the hull of his ship. The XO of the ship started to speak. "Behind that gas pillar off our nose, is a Raptor. She's playing hard to get, but she is there. They might be getting a sniff of us through our stealth at this range. Ragnar is fraking with our systems like you would not be leave."

HH nodded and thought for a few minutes. His ship was barely moving as they entered the narrow lane. His computers didn't have the path, they only had the information that there was a "tunnel" to get to Ragnar Anchorage. He reached down and picked up a mic. "Raptor off my bow. This is Ogygia actual. Come on out, or I will blow you Frakers away." When HH put the mic away, he was met by wide eyes and open mouths. He had just blown their cover, and that was something that CI didn't just do in the field.

When the rest of the command center got back to their systems, they saw the small form of a Colonial Raptor come fully exposed to the pocket Battlestar. It was a tense few minutes, as the warship and the scout ship worked out if one of them was a version of the Olympic Carrier. By now the Anchorage and SLiE knew how long it would take for "signs" of problems to start on human forms in this place. The Raptor could not keep the Orion class ship there that long, but it could drag out the total length of time it was in the tunnel.

The Raptor was able to retreat down the tunnel, and it had suggested that the warship should stay in place until its return. After the small craft was gone from sensor range. HH ordered his ship to advance down the tunnel, but at minimum speed. He was not going to let his ship be a sitting target, if this turned into a trap. At this now current speed. It would take four hours to clear the tunnel, only he did not know this.

HH was not surprised, when two hours later he was met in the tunnel by 8 armed Raptors. What he was surprised by, was that 2 of the Raptors were old 1st war versions of that venerable design. 7 of the Raptors took up covering positions near the larger warship, and one of them advised the warship to increase speed to what was almost triple his current rate. The 8th Raptor returned deeper into the tunnel, to take up a hiding position near the mouth.

Colonel Bellamy was watching the war weary warship slowly come out of the tunnel. Charles looked over to his staff. "If their weapons power up? Blow them out of the sky. The Raptors are not to wait. Also have two more of the Raptors check behind them. Let's make sure that they are alone. I think this is a time to trust but verify."

The warship was now more visible, and Charles could see the battle damage to parts of the ship. By now, he could even tell that her sub-light engines were running too hot for this thrust rating. He was betting that was not the only major system that needed some attention.

HH was cool as ice as he stalks the CIC of his command. He could see the weapons on the Raptors. He about ordered his ship to leave, when two of the Raptors had peeled off and headed back down the tunnel. Only his training had stopped him from making a major course change. A voice from behind him brought him back.

"Sir! We are being told to dock at the main docking port. They also repeated the demand about not launching vipers, raptors, or activating weapons. This time they added that we are to report, if we have anyone in sickbay."

Henry looked over to Morton, who only gave him his own blank look. "Okay, do we have anyone in medical?"

The station that handles battle damage, also had a direct link to the medical department. "Sir, they report that the new guy assigned to Number 22 CIWS, has reported to medical about ten minutes ago. He looks to have some kind of bug."

HH gave a chin wave to a person standing next to a metal hatch between his bridge and the rest of the warship. Soon an armored guard would be standing in the medical department. HH and his staff had worked out some plans, after they had found out about the human form Cylons.

HH waited and watched, and he was impressed with what he saw. The file image of the Anchorage had held two main image types. One was from the 1st war, and the ones taken later. The later images showed a wreck of a station. He could tell that someone or group had invested some resources into improving this place, and that was not the Cylon way of doing things.

When the Ogygia docked to the "North Pole", HH was in the air lock waiting. He looked at a screen, which was being fed by a very non-military video camera mounted on the other end. He could clearly see four armed guards, and they were not human form Cylons, they were too large. He knew that his XO was standing on the bridge with his finger on a detonator, which would cut the airlock from the ship and fill this part of the station with flying high-speed metal.

When HH exited the craft, he could see the guards relax at seeing him. A tall and very fit woman stepped forward in spoke in an oddly accented Caprican. "Good, you are not a Cylon. It would have been a shame, to blow your ship apart. The station commander will see you. Do you have a copy of your logs, Captain?"

HH was not in a military uniform of any kind. CI didn't go into that before the new war, and now he just did not have time for things like that. He gave a nod and made a little show of moving his hand away from his hip mounted pistol. He then tapped a cut cornered book in his non-firing hand. He fell into step behind the tall woman. As he past the standing guards, he noticed that they were big and wide enough to be pro sports stars he remembered seeing on the entertainment shows.

They exited the access point into a main loading, storage, and sorting area of this large deck. As they walked, he could tell that there were a lot of people working on the hull. He could see that the old images had been true. This station had been a wreck, but they were trying to fix that, and they were working very hard. He could see a short pile of half a dozen different diameter pipes in the general area along with boxes of fittings.

They made a short turn, and the tall woman knocked hard on a hatch that looked like it had been freshly painted. HH was shocked when he stepped into the room. He would have expected that the Commander's office would be deeper in the station. Then again, he knew that this was designed to be an unmanned station after the 1st Cylon war.

Colonel Charles Bellamy looked up from his paperwork. "Good to finely put a face to your voice, Mr. Hewitt. I'm Colonel Bellamy and I'm in charge of this part of our operation. Before we dig too deep into feeling each other out. Did anyone report to your med bay after you entered Ragnar atmosphere?"

CI trained people had to be fast on their feet, or they would never had made it out of basic training much less advanced training for their first assignment. "I don't know why that is a concern to you, but yes one person reported to my med bay with flu like symptoms."

Charles reached over and pushed a button on a thin data pad, and then looked over to the "captain". "Do you know why the Colonial military put this anchorage here?"

HH could not help but be taken aback. "I assumed that it was because it was hard as Frak to get here, and that DRADIS is about fraking useless after a few dozen meters."

Charles gave a small smile and put his hands down on his desk, and locked eyes with the other man. "Well, you're right on two counts. I would have thought the same thing. I did my time in the Navy, but I was working on a civilian ship when the war started. Admiral Adama told us, that towards the end of the first war. They found out that there was something about Ragnar that hurts Cylons. Do you know that the Cylons can look human?"

HH's mind was reeling. Admiral Adama? So, they have at least one Battlestar, and maybe more. "Yes, we found one not long after the war started. We caught him trying to upload corrupted software into the controlling computers on my ship. We also know that they can download into new bodies, so it's hard to kill them."

Charles was surprised, but then again, he thought that this ship was from Colonial Intelligence. He suspected that they did not give out commands of a vessel this size to just anyone. "Do any of these faces look familiar?" Charles passes over a second data pad.

HH took the device and as he flipped through images. He was looking at the images closely, but he also was amazed at how fast the little device worked. He thought that this was a few generations ahead of the top of the line devices his command had been testing. Then he stopped at an image labeled Number 5. "This is the one in med bay."

Charles took the device and looked at the image and made a face. "I would like my people to take care of this. We know a few things about how to handle them, without letting them escape with information that they could use against us."

HH pulled out a little radio from his inside jacket pocket. "46/2/87. Morton, a security team is going to enter the ship and take a person out of medical. He is one of them."

 **Four hours later.**

Charles was letting the other man eat a few bites before he interrupted, to continue the interview. "That is a Fraking story Captain Hewitt."

HH let his fork drop to his plate. "Your one to talk Colonel, and I still know your leaving out a lot. I will just leave it, that you found some help on a planet not on our charts. And this is going to be a support base for recon into this area of space."

Charles gave a curt head nod. "That will work. And you have not said so, but you're Colonial Intelligence. As soon as I can get word back to the old man. I will see about making sure you're officially moved over to the Colonial Navy with rank to match, and the same will go for your crew. Now what can I do, to help your mission and mine?"

HH had to smile, after the second hour of the meeting. He had let Deyo know, that the Anchorage was going to send a Raptor out to "the spot" and guide the Raptors with the kids back to home base. "Well we need fresh food for a start."

Charles could not help but snort. "We are awhile away from having any hydroponics to produce our first batch of fresh food. We are living on ration packs, and some of them are a little strange. If all else fails, we have a few years' worth of ration meals that the stamps say are still good."

HH let his face fall, and his eyes got a haunted look. "After what I have seen. Ration bars are good as gold. I have seen people eat their clothes, due to hunger. If you don't Fraking want them? I will take every brick off of your hands. I know a few groups that could use them. How about a shipyard for my ship? What about ammunition, fuel, and things like that?"

Charles now smiled and put down his glass of fruit juice. He had "let" the ship's crew cycle off and stop by the Star League MASH. While they were going through a detailed check out. The Star League field kitchen was fired up for a few hours. Each person got vitamin shots, and as much food as the medical team would let them eat. They even were given a "Brown Bag lunch" to take back with them to the ship.

"A shipyard is out of the question, Captain. I do have some trained people, but mostly they will just be eager hands. We also don't have any parts for an Orion class warship. We can help get your Vipers and Raptors put back into working order, and fuel is not a problem. We will make sure you have full tanks by the end of this shift. Ammunition might be an issue. We can send over a couple of pallets with a dozen Lightening-Javelins on each one. We can do the same with 30mm and 50mm KEWs. I don't know if we have cannon rounds that will fit your primary guns. And I know that we don't have any Nike-Hercules missiles for your launchers." Charles was looking at the data file he had pulled up for an Orion class warship fighting in the 1st war.

HH felt his mouth drop open, before he could stop it. What the civilian turned Colonel had just offered up was something out of a dream. Fuel and food would have been worth his right eye and almost his first born. "That would be great! And cannon rounds are something we can get from someone else. They are old Jupiter Battlestar guns. Some of the groups out there make their own ammo for their own defensive weapons, which share the same pedigree. We could not use Nike-Hercules, even if you had them. Now if you have some Nike-Ajax for a Valkyrie. Then we can talk some business. I also know of a group that took out a Basestar not to long ago, but it ran them dry on that type of missile."

Charles let a smile go to his eyes. "It is a funny thing, about that. I might be able to send over a dozen Nike-Ajax. We don't have nuclear warheads for any of them, but I do have a few Ajax's that I'm not going to be able to use right now."

 **Two weeks later**

HH looked at a newly installed monitor on his command deck, it was one of the many new or fixed stations all around his ship. He was watching as the grey/blue hell world dropped away from them. The last two weeks had been amazing. He knew it was all in his mind, but he felt cleaner. His ship smelled cleaner, and it somehow felt more alive. He had a crew back to 150 full time members, but some would still need some training. They had been POW's only a few months before. He had left any children that did not need to be nursed back on the anchorage. They were all back to being in the "real" military. They had a timeline they were to keep, and no more just floating out in the deep of space waiting to die. They had a mission that depended on them.

In a month, they would be back or dead. But the kids needed schools, and the anchorage was better set up for that kind of thing. His ship still could use some dock yard time, but she had a full set of armor and weapons again. She was packing a full set of operational Vipers VII and V, and all 6 of her Raptors were good to go. He had traded one of the newer Raptors for an older one that held a tail gun. That would be a surprise next time a Raider got on their tails. His ship had a full load of "freshish' food and 3 tons of just post-war ration packs. The later were going to be traded, along with some of the Nike-Ajax. He had 6 in his silos and another dozen in the magazine. Deyo thought that they could trade four for a full magazine of cannon rounds and maybe some Intel.

The Ogygia was back on mission of espionage and reconnaissance. She also just might bring the fight back to the Cylons, in a few ways that were not in the CI handbook. One thing was for sure, she was going to start making things painful for the Cylons. And now she might not have to do it alone or by playing by many rules. He had a smile on his face, and he looked over at his now real wife as she patted his hand. She knew what he was thinking, and she agreed with him. They still might be hiding, but they were not out of this war.

 **15 Feb 3049** **Zephyr's run**

 **Duniashire system**

Working in the Traffic Control of the systems only Olympus class recharging station, was not an easy job. As the operator worked his system, an attention signal sounded off in his ears. The operator took a few seconds to review the data, which was starting to come in from a new source. It was just another day at the jump point.

"Officer of the day. We have another emergence wave. It looks to be a small one. Maybe, 90 to 120 seconds out?" Now his voice went up a few notches, as part of his brain processes more of the information. "It does not match any reference files."

The officer of the deck today, was Captain Lisa Rumbels. This was a job given out as a "reward" for her actions against the last pirate attack. She was going to have to be out here for another 6 months. Now, after that? She would have her command back. The latest rumor had it, that her unit's light fighters were going to be replaced with heavier units coming out of the FWL. To say that she was not ready or wanted to take a shift at the systems main interstellar Traffic Control, that was an understatement of a lifetime. That did not mean, that she didn't try to do the best job that she was capable of doing. Soft shoeing was not in her nature, she was more of a take the bone in her teeth and push through type person.

Lisa checked the readouts and then looked at the schedule. They did not match. "Send the notice to the CAP and fire up the main Radar."

The Radar energy was leaving the great station, just as a ship came into this system. The energy waves came back to the million-ton station, at the speed of light. That was when things changed, and Lisa was the first person to notice something was off. All of the old hands were waiting for their systems to tell them what to do next. They had been doing this job for years, and they had fallen into a set pattern of how they did things. This also was the second most traveled to system in all of the MC. What could be new? Lisa had known from recent experience what could be new.

"Good God! Tracking flush everything! Look at the size of that monster!" She was yelling, and that got everyone in the room moving at the quick time.

Communication kicked in first as they realized that their boss was upset. "Sending standard greeting and request for information."

The man running the radar interrupted. "Getting secondary returns on main receiver. She is 4000 feet long. There is a structure on one end of the ship. It's reading over 1200 feet going around the main hull, and its turning like a grav deck. What the hell kind of ship is this?"

Just as the alert fighters were about to leave their bays. The CAP's fighters were starting to angle to see what had just paid a visit to their home system. Having a ship that was a third longer than the massively long Monolith stop by to say high, had kicked the alert button of the station. The alert fighters had no problem picking up the massive ship on their active systems, as soon as they were pointed in the right direction.

The communications station's operator slumped in her chair, but she didn't unstrap in Zero g. "We have a reply from the target. They are calling themselves the long-ranged merchant vessel Zephyr. They claim Outer Worlds Alliance registry, and they would like to launch one ship towards the planet so that they can conduct some business."

Lisa felt her own shoulders relax. "Okay, she is just another trash hauler. With all of the housekeeping stuff you are going to be sending, ask what class of ship she is. Keep the current CAP close to her, for now, and turn over the alert birds back to their commander."

Felix turned and looked at the mission commander, and he raised an eyebrow. He had been expecting… something different. So far things had broken just as both of them had been briefed, and what he had read in the reports that had come from Copeland's runs. If he had been over on that station? He would have gone to a full war footing and launched everything with a weapon, and he would have put marines on a ship type that they had never seen before. Admiral Xi just looked at him, kind of like the way that Bill Adama had done to him a few times. He held his tongue and watched what was going on.

"Ma'am! The 6 fighter CAP is in an orbit between us and the station, but they are no longer coming directly at us. They are sending over the same information, and the same SOP that they sent to the Styx the first time she stopped here. The only deviation has been a request to know what ship class we are." The communications tech was as amazed as the rest of the CIC. They had been training hard ever since they had left New Circe. To have everything happening just as they were supposed to, was so strange that they were all on edge.

Xi had a satisfied smile on her face. "Colonel Gaeta. There are only five or six core or standard jumpship designs in the whole Inner Sphere. That does not mean, that those are the only ones that a system like this might see over the years. Tell them that we are a modified Leviathan, of the sub class called Zephyr. And now, I think it's time to use the contact information that Copeland got for us. As soon as we have our first reply. I want to launch my K1."

Six hours later, the Modified Royal K1 drop shuttle left the jump point. As the craft left. The massive ring going around the long ship was just reaching 1g of pull for those staying on the ship. All of the rest of the Colonial made AG plates were turned off. They had only one set of "inspectors" scheduled to arrive, but it was expected that there would be others. Or at least that was what the command staff of the jumpship were planning on.

It was a four day burn to make it to the planet but finding a landing spot at the drop port had not been an issue. Explaining that the small craft only needed a small area to land, that was basically what a Landing boat used. Now that had been more difficult. That bit of explaining had taken longer, than setting up a meeting with the head of MMM on the small ship after they landed. When they made orbit? The landing area was changed from the drop port to the small craft landing strip, but only after a ST46 had made a close pass of the K1. After that? Things went better for the dropship's command staff getting a proper sized landing spot.

McDonogh was on his way to the drop port when his security team sent a message to divert him to the small craft airfield. He was intrigued. He also made a note, that he had received the message very quickly. Now that the importance had been proven about the level of information, which could come from "the assets". He would be given any new messages as quick as humanly possible, if not just a little faster.

McDonogh had taken two hours to personally call around, after the first message had crossed his desk. He knew the only group who had access to these codes, and they were not currently in system. The only new group in the whole star system, was a group that had come in on a modified Leviathan class jumpship. They had said that they were from the OWA, before the smallest dropship ever seen in living memory had started burning towards the planet. They were not connected with Copeland Supply Salvage and Resale. But were they new players? And how had they gotten their hands on this code group?

When he pulled into the jetliner airfield, his driver had to drive all the way to the end of the passenger handling buildings. When he made the last turn, he was greeted with his first real world view of a K-1 class drop shuttle he ever had seen. He only knew about it, because he had looked up the blasted thing after reading a report from his security team. It looked like a very small Mule class, or he might have been looking at a Mule from a great distance. The outside was a little flame scarred, but what dropship did not look that way in this day and age.

There were a pair of large armored and armed personnel at the only open hatch of the small craft sized dropship. "Well this must be the place?" He didn't know that he had spoken aloud.

Admiral Xi was in civilian clothes, and she had started making her way to the hatch to the outside world. Thanks to Robert Copeland and SLIC, she had a nice bio on who was supposed to be at this meeting. She had a plan B, if it was not him. That one was going to be less fun for her to have to work with, but she would make do if she had to. When the hover car came to a stop at the base of the drop shuttle? She had no problem identifying the man who straightened his expensive business suit, before walking up towards the hatch. When he was close enough? She exited the small craft's main hatch but waited for the man at the top of the loading ramp.

"Mr. McDonogh. My name is Margaret Xi, and we have a mutual friend. Copeland Supply Salvage and Resale." She wanted to get this out in the open right at the start.

McDonogh saw the woman exit the small craft and watched as she moved. It didn't take him but a heartbeat to know two things about this stranger, before she had said a single word. One was that it was not Robert or Jess, despite the use of their codes. The other was that the person might be in a nicely cut suit, but she was military to the bone.

"Miss Xi? Nice to meet you. I take it, that you work with Captain Copeland somehow." Mike put his working face on and tried to do a little fishing before things got too deep.

Xi gave a sly smile. "You can say that. With the issues he ran into on the last run, I decided that I should keep that a little on the quiet side. I would appreciate it if you would also agree to that. Now, would you mind having the meeting inside?"

McDonogh looked at the woman, and then stepped towards the hatch. It was not the first time that he had done a deal in a dropship. It might have been a long time, until recently, but he had done it before. The one driving question he had, was would this be worth his time. The briefing room was only two hatches in from the main hatch to the odd little ship. The door was open, and another guard was pointing toward it as he entered the small ship. Admiral Xi was only a half-step behind him going into the small but specially outfitted room.

The meeting room was… Spartan, and Xi took a seat at the head of the small table. "Mr. McDonogh, Captain Copland thinks very highly of you and your company."

McDonogh did not smile, and he kept is face very still. "I made some good deals with the good Captain. Will I be seeing him anytime soon?"

Xi knew about the trackers that Robert had put into the jackets and helmets, it had been in his reports. It was a nice little trick, and it just showed how far out of the box that man could think on any given day. "I do not know. What we are going to be talking about, is separate from any of your dealings with that company. "

McDonogh blinked and pulled some key data points from that short statement. "So, you don't run that company?" He had a mental bet, for the last few minutes. It was that he was about to be dealing with that Captain's boss. Now it looked like there might be another game afoot, and he was about to be drawn into it. Mike had to use his quick mind to it's fullest power, to quickly come up with some ideas about what was going on today.

Xi gave a laugh that was very genuine. "My dealings with the Captain and his company, are more complicated than I am willing to talk about in this meeting."

McDonogh could feel his eyebrows move, against his will. "What kind of deal are you thinking about? We have a backlog on orders right now, but I'm sure we can work together."

He was thinking that whoever that emblematic captain might work for, was now looking for some major weapons to purchase. This was something he knew how to get ever last cent for his company. The words were flowing. He had known that this woman was military, and so she must be looking at getting some mechs or fighters. The words were falling out of his mouth more out of muscle memory, than he was really thinking about it.

Xi let out another deep laugh as the man got a full head of steam, with what she suspected was a well-practiced speech. "Your company has a nice little catalog, and I did spend some time reviewing it before contacting you. You have three different light mechs, two types of medium, and a heavy class mech. You now are offering a few "upgraded" offerings of at least two of those designs on the open market. You also recently started almost flooding the market with Clint parts and more complete machines. Those are not what I am looking at."

"Okay, what are you looking at?" Mike's mind shifted to the one item that Copeland had bought in some numbers, Leopard class dropship engines.

"The Captain said that you had been working on rebuilding a few assault class machines, but you can only turn out a small handful a year. How would you like to have the complete plans for something like that class of machine? When I mean complete? I mean complete with TT&S, as well as plans for the construction of its communications systems. You will need to design the weapons, that you currently are not building for your other systems I'm afraid."

Now his eyebrows shot up into his expensively cut hair, and his jaw fell open for a few seconds. "You have the full designs for an Atlas?!"

Xi didn't even bat and eye at the other man's shock. "No." She passed over a few sheets of paper, which she had been playing with in her hands while she had been talking. "I'm talking about the King Crab. You already make the Vlar, and from what a little birdy told me. You have a few extra 300 series engines that are not being used to make new machines. I have the complete plans for the KGC-000 with the Dolban VirtuTalk and Dalban HI-Res TT and S. That is what I'm offering you and your manufacturing company. If we can come to an understanding, that is."

McDonogh now had his feet back under him, for the most part. This was not the first time "someone" had come to them offering something like this. It had never been referenced to a top of the line 100ton assault mech. Granted they did not have the proof, that they could come up with the data for the late Star League weapons. It takes thousands of pages of design plans to make even a 20ton machine. He had no idea how many pages it would take to make something that was five times larger. He was betting that it was going to be massive.

"My company might be interested, but how do we know that they are complete. If they are complete? What is it going to cost us?" Mike was keeping his voice as level as he could, but he was betting he was failing.

Xi settled into her chair a little deeper. "We want 10 percent of the sales price of every machine that you make and sell of this design."

McDonogh now coughed and he was glad he had not been drinking anything. "10 percent! We will lose our shirts. It will cost tens to hundreds of millions just to get this set up. We have been trying to sell the few rebuilt Atlases for years. They cost so much, that the clientele for something like that is very rare."

Xi smiled a cold smile. She had been brought into most, but not all of the data that had been "recovered" from that small coast guard ship. She knew that a major war was coming, and any weapon would be snapped up as fast as it could be made. It would not matter where it was made, buyers would flock to any production sites around the whole Sphere to buy whatever might be available. She was betting that they would not balk at the 10 to 11 million for a mech like this.

"10 percent, after the first five are sold on the open market. That should be enough for you to breakeven, before we start getting our cut. I'm sure you can sell as many as you make to the military of the MC, if you are doing something other than rebuilding a few battle-damaged big boys without a solid logistics plan. And if not them? I don't think that it would take much effort for you to trade them to the FWL for a tall stack of M-bills, if they have the right weapon loadouts."

McDonogh had to think about this, and she had a valid point or two. They were selling almost as many 75ton Marauders to the FWL and other groups, as the MC could afford to take into service. Now that MMM had a reputation of having top of the line mechs for sale, more people were coming to buy them. The MC had not minded, that much, about the number of mechs MMM was selling outside of her boarders. They got a sales tax, income tax off the workers increased paid hours, and an export tax on all sales going to the FWL or other buyers outside of the MC. The CC and FedCom were even getting an additional "fee" hit on the "special" parts they were getting from MMM to repair all of those Clints.

"Okay, I think that we can do that. If the data is good." McDonogh half stood and offered his hand to the tall and striking good looking woman. They would not get paid until well after MMM had used the supplied data to make a short run. If they had wanted a few million C bills up front? Then he would have been more suspect of this deal.

Xi first took the hand, and then passed over a thick folder that held the contract. "Good! This is a copy of the contract. You can have two of your people come over tomorrow, and they can review all of the plans. When they are done? You sign and I sign, and then all you will have to do is make the damn things. Oh, and then you will have to sell them." She let a devilish glint into her eyes as she adds the last part.

McDonogh took the folder and started flipping through the thick set of pages. He thought the deal was done. He was thinking that giving Copeland those codes had again, paid off. At least this time, he did not have damage done to a major company asset first. He was not surprised that he was still upset about that little game that Copeland had played on him. His train of thought was interrupted when he missed what the woman had just said.

"I'm sorry. I missed what you said." He was a little embarrassed.

Xi raised an eyebrow and repeated herself. "I asked. How are the plans going, to making the Union class ship?"

This time McDonogh was not surprised about what he was asked. "They are not going as well as I would like. We had some setbacks, which we are having to pay for. Ones that I had not expected to need to do, when I came up with the idea." Mike felt a little heat come out into his voice, as an image of the repair list had hit his desk about the cost to rebuild both military units. That was on top of the cost list to rebuild the two dropship hangars, and the damage those damn Long Tom rounds had done to the local area before the Fortress had lifted off.

Xi had to hide a sly smile, she had a good idea about what costs he was referring to. That was thanks again to the contacts that Copeland had so quickly developed. "That might turn out to be useful. Have you thought about doing all of the groundwork, so that you can build something larger? Like say up to an Overlord class vessel?"

McDonogh snorted and got his mind back into gear, and he focused back on this meeting. "I did think about that some time ago. But it would double the cost of the project, and we are only looking at expanding our rebuilding slip for repairing Unions." He was not going to let information like that out, at least not for free.

There were basically four levels of dropship pit. The cheapest one was just a landing cradle. If you about doubled the money, you got one that could also do light repair work on commercial dropships. If you again doubled the money, you got a pit that could do about mid-level work on commercial and light repairs on combat dropships. Doubling your cost got you the ability to rebuild or build commercial ships and mid-level work on combat ships. The last level was building or rebuilding a combat dropship. That did not count the cost of making the items needed to do the work in the first place.

"I can see that in the short term, it would cost more. Then again, it would allow you to repair almost every combat mech carrier dropship in the whole MC. I also happened to have the specs and data sheets for the Anacon B1781 engine. It is not as complete, as for what we have for the King Crab." This was not totally true. The SLDF navy could make these engines, anytime they wanted or had the raw materials to do the job. Admiral Xi did not want to have too many magic wands of information. It could scare MMM off.

McDonogh was in the battlemech building business, but he loved the aerospace part of his company. He looked up to the metal covered ceiling, and his eyes kind of glazed over as he went deep into thought. "Anacon…..Anacon B1781? I know that name….. Where do I know that name from?" All thoughts of the damage done by the attack on his facilities were now forgotten.

His eyes shot all the way open. "Lion! You have two Lion class dropships on the jumpship you came in on. You have more? How many more? Where did you get them?" The words more or less fell out of his mouth, before his brain could stop them.

Xi let her smile fall and made it looked like she was having to fight to not let something slip. "Not as many as we need, but we are not the only ones that use that class of ship in this part of space. There are a few hundred out there, that I understand only just need engines to get them back into combat operations. I would bet that the Wolf's Dragoons are also looking for some repair parts for this type of dropship. You do know? That the Anacon B1781 series engines are just a modification, of the same engines used in the Fortress class dropship."

Again, McDonogh's jaw was swinging in the wind. "I would love to do something like that, but there is no way I could get the funds to do something like it. It has been a cat fight, to just get the funds to expand the repair pit into something a little larger in military grade dropships."

Now Xi bites her lower lip, this next step was going to be key for the future of her people. "So funding is the main issue?

McDonogh looked down his nose at the woman, and he took some time to do some pretty deep thinking before he jumped on this landmine. "You can fix most problems, if you throw enough money at it in a short amount of time. In this case? I have the people that know how to do the work, and make the machines, to make the parts for my original plan. I just need a lot more money to get the plan back on track."

Xi was told to push for this next goal as hard as she could. She was lost in thought and mentally reviewing all of those inventories and the reports, which Copeland had generated or caused to be generated. "Funds?" Her eyes shot open. She had been practicing her acting for months with SLIC. She made her face go very still after her little show.

"So how is the work being done on reverse engineering those extended ranged PPC's, that Copeland sold you?" Xi's voice was as level as ice.

McDonogh did not know where this stranger was going with that statement. This was so far off script, that it should be a new meeting. It was not that much of a guess, what his company would be doing with one or two of those weapons. Still, it was not something that the average person would know about. He knew that he needed to play this a little cagey. He did not want to leave his company open to an objective raid, to get all of their hard work taken or destroyed before it had even started to payoff. He also didn't want to let on, about all of the other goodies that they had recovered from the failed "pirate" raid.

"Not as well, as I would like. We are further along on what we are calling the Armstrong Spitfire JU-22, which is already in low rate production. We might be at the steady, but low rate production for the ER PPC by the end or middle of this year. That is, if things work out. They are thinking about calling them the Royal Flush." Mike made a sour face about the choice of names for his company's copy of the H class weapon.

Xi was smiling again. "Then the rumors that you have a full production line running on Canopus for the new PPC, is not true."

McDonogh's head was spinning. "I heard that one. I think that our Public Relations people are going down the wrong road, on trying to crush that idea. The harder they try, the faster the story spreads."

"But what if it was true? What would happen, if you had a hundred of them in 90 days? Then another 200 weapons about six months after that? They would be right at 600k for each of them. But think about how much that would add to your bottom line, after you put them in mechs."

Xi was tapping her finger on the metal desktop. As the head of the supply runs, she knew that her people only had 400 more of the old Star league H class ER PPCs. When they had first left Clan space, they had been the leaders of the PPC technology. They had been replacing and or slowly trading the royal tech H class PPCs to the others. All as they replaced them with the Improved Extended Range Particle Projection Cannon (IER PPC) that they had developed. Those older weapons were still in use and fitted to third line units and in cache sites that had been cleaned out, when they had made the run from Clan space. Still they had over 900 of those IER PPCs, which she was looking at selling in the near future. That number would only grow, as more of the newer Long Ranged PPCs were made to replace the IER PPC in lower and lower priority units.

"GOOD GOD! You can make that many of them!" McDonogh was out of his chair like a shot, and his voice was booming.

Xi was shaking her head, and she pointed for him to retake this seat. "No, that is just what are in excess to our needs." She smiled on the inside. She had not spoken one lie to this man, and she was proud of that feat.

McDonogh returned to his seat, but he needed a little while to get his breathing back under control so that he could speak in a normlish tone. "That is going to cost my company alot of capital."

Xi now waved a finger at the man. "That is why I suggested fewer of the weapons, on the first load. That would give you time to sell or use them and then sell enough of the finished products, to have a fresh bank. After the second load? We then can see what else you might be able to work with us on acquiring. That should at least free up the production cost of the weapons. The sales of the second load should give your company a massive shot of additional income in short order."

McDonogh let out a belly laugh, in-between gasps of breath. "I cannot wait to see Copeland and let him know we are partners." He was not going to tell this woman that It would be a cold day in hell, when MMM would be locked into a single supplier of anything. They would buy the weapons, but they would also keep working on getting their own line up in running.

Now Xi looked visibly angry, and only a little of it was an act. "Do not talk to Copeland or anyone related to that Supply and Salvage Company, about this deal. He is just going to have an issue finding as many of the ER PPC's to sell, in the future as he was expecting. We still will be trading them the extra ultra-class cannons and a few other odds and ends. If you do not want issues, from some of your competitors finding out about this deal? They might cause you a lot of issues about you getting these weapons. We will be keeping this deal classified, and we suggest that you do the same."

The idea of making sure that there was a split between Xi and Copeland's mission, had come from the head of SLIC. It was expected that this part of the mission was going to be compromised, and it would be compromised in a very short amount of time. That could have an advantage, if it was compromised in just the right way. There were plans to handle that contingency and others, if it didn't break the way the people with the big brains thought that it would.

Xi was happy that she had been able to accomplish so many of the goals, that she had been asked to do on this planet. Now she had one more goal to try to finish, and it was the real reason that this K-1 had been selected for this mission. One of the liners would have been a better choice for this mission after all, and it would have not drawn so much attention.

"Mr. McDonogh, is this your current stock price?" Xi passed over a data pad that was showing a live feed from the planet's stock exchange.

Mike took the device and after checking the screen, he pulled his own handheld and check the stock price. He was not surprised, that it was in sync with this woman's device. "Yes, and I'm happy to say. That we are up about 15 percent over last year and at a 5-year high. I think we will be at a 7 or10 year high by the end of the year."

Xi did not smile this time, and she took the data pad back. "Yes, I reviewed a lot of the information on the investing sites. I found that a lot of them think that your company is over stretched in the near term, and they think your stock is overvalued. I might have a way to make them eat crow and help cover some of the cost of things."

She rose from her chair and opened a well-hidden door on one side of the briefing room. On heavy shelves were bars, more bars, and plates of gold and platinum. That hidden room was the whole reason that this ship had been selected. Only half of these metals had come from New Circe banks. The other half had come from what Adama had been able to pull from wrecked banks around Colonial space. This was not all of what had been pulled out, but it was a lot of what was left for the City State to have access to.

Mike had no idea what was in the hidden area, but the gold and silver colors was a hint. He slowly rose from his chair and examined the small side room. He had no idea what some of the markings were on the bars and plates, but most of the others told him what he was looking at. It was a fortune in metals, that made even his heart skip a beat. He picked up a few without thinking about it, and they were as heavy as he expected them to be.

Mike put down a 1inch thick plate of silver metal that he knew was not silver. "Okay Miss Xi. What do you have in mind?"

Margret Xi walked up and stood beside Mike as he looked at the valuables in the walk-in safe. "Before we get into that. What do you know about the current assets of Diamond Garter Shipyards and the Athena Corporation?"

Now it was going to pay off that Mike always had the aerospace bug. "Diamond Garter Shipyards makes a merchant class jumpship every few years, but they have only been a marginal business after the last war. Now the Athena Corporation, they used to make a warship of the same name. It was the only major warship the MC ever made. After the SLDF took over the last time, there is not much left. Why?"

Xi pitched her voice low, like she was trying to keep a secret. "The people I work for, want to buy a 15 percent stake in MMM. For this stock buy, that you will not release to the general public until you have to release your taxes. You will move MMM more into the Aerospace side of the business, then it had ever been in the recent past. MMM will buy Diamond Garter Shipyards and other Ex Athena Corporation sites, and then start working on getting them back up and running on Canopus."

That was not the last meeting between Admiral Xi and some of the senior people in MMM. They worked out a list of deals and methods of repayments, dates, and location for the transfer. Much to the joy of the crew and Admiral Xi, they were able to lift off right on the original planned time. What was kept from MMM, was that Clan Wolverine and the City State were not going to be just 15 percent owners in MMM. She would be buying another 5 percent of that company on the open market. It would be held in a bank account on this planet. If things worked out? The Star League in Exile and the Colonials would slowly take more and more control of the largest weapons manufacturer in this part of human occupied space.

The five day burn from the planet to the jump point, went without any issues. The K1 had been able to join a group of six other dropships heading to the same jump point, not long after reaching orbit. It was a nice safe little convoy of mutual protection. The small ship attached to a docking point, on the odd looking "jumpship". It could have landed in the small craft landing bay, but that would have been seen as "different enough" to have caused it to be remembered. The K-1 attached to an open collar, just like any other dropship in this system.

When the Zephyr left this system, it did not report where it was going to be going next. While the Colonial ship had been in that system, some of the crew had been working on a side project. It was a type of transponder, which was very illegal to have on your ship. When they were about 60 light years out of this system. The Modified "Leviathan" named Zephyr from the OWA would be gone, for the time being. She now would be the Leviathan called the M/V West Wind that had just left the FedCom and DC boarder areas.

They were not going to Cate's Hold, just yet. Admiral Xi needed to get back to help plan out some of the changes, which she had made possible with her few days of meetings. The Zephyr made it out of the Inner Sphere, and all the way to an area were one of 6 and growing number of Olympian class ships was doing her patrols and training crews. The Demeter would take her modified K-1 to another ship, which would carry it all the way back to New Circe. The Zephyr still had the mission to take all of those dropships along with the personnel and equipment, that where assigned to do a mission. A mission that was a long way back the way that the ship had just come.

 **Notes** :

 **Does the MC have a SEC**? I have no idea, so I just sort of winged out a few rules.

 **Why the King Crab?** I had to weigh the King Crab vs Atlas. In the end, I decided that the King Crab was a more likely design that would be pulled to leave with the SLDF. Besides MMM is already making the Var 300. They do not need any Star League tech to make the KGC-0000. For the KGC-000 (yes that last 0 is important) they would "only" need Ferro-Fibrous with Case.

 **Why buy out MMM?** Currently they have plants on two different planets. And they can draw on the whole MC for support and supplies, but it will be a long-term plan.

 **old Orion Class Pocket-Battlestar Ogygia**. Crew 150-200 and 20 vipers (6 working), 6 Raptors (2 working). 12 primary guns (larger guns from Jupiter class Battlestar refitted), 32 CIWS (updated with late Jupiter class 50mm KEWs), 4 missile silos (updated from Valkyrie Battlestar with two more tubes total 6). Serving mainly as a light espionage or reconnaissance ship with updates to this technology every few years.


	40. Chapter 40 1 Feb 3049

**Chapter 40**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **1 Feb 3049** **launch of the rescue mission.**

 **New Circe**

The fleet was gathered around the planet, and they now were ready to go. It was mostly a Colonial fleet operation. The SLDF did not have enough ships fitted with the very capable Colonial drives to significantly increase those numbers. They were still launching combat operations against the Cylons, and they could not do two things at once. The few SLDF ships that were on this mission? They were just the most combat capable of the ships in the fleet. The heavy lifting would be done on the Colonial built hulls.

The heavy hitters were the Zughoffer Weir and the Nike, as escorts to the fleet. Most of the transports were going to be Colonial, but there really one-time big lifting came from the SLDF. It would be done by the Styx and the three specialty ships she had strapped to her sides. If Admiral Adama had access to something like her, when the Cylons had attacked his people? The City State would be a lot bigger, and the Cylons would be regretting their actions in the next few years.

The first trip out that far had taken months for the Inner Sphere limited travel technology to reach Nike's World. Most of the ships in this fleet on this mission would cover that same distance, in less than a week. They would have to push the engines, but they did not have to push them that hard to cover that distance in that short a time.

In a quick set of flashes, one by one and faster than the eye could follow. The ships disappeared out of orbit over the planet of New Circe. The last one to leave this system was the Styx herself. Between the first ship leaving and last ship winking out of the system, was only 45 seconds. The mission was gone from the home planet. The only ships, which were nearby to the evacuation fleet that did not leave with the others? They were the local press craft, which had only been given one-hour notice about the mission about to leave New Circe.

It was a fast trip, even for the Colonial trained crews. The only ship in this little fleet, which had covered these types of distances in the last year. It was the crew of the SLDF vessel Styx. Only eight hours was allowed to be use for a stand down for maintenance, a day. All of the ships were ready after the 8-hour break, and the maintenance tasks were done. Even if it put their crews through the restricted timeline under insane pressure to get the work done. Seven days after starting the run, the fleet was in the system that needed help. So far, they had not seen any Cylon forces. But very few within the fleet expected that to last the whole mission. The fleet broke into two parts as soon as they had appeared in the system.

 **8 Feb 3049**

 **Nike's World**

The now lightly crewed Nike and the Battleship Zughoffer Weir moved away from the oddly looking convoy of ships. One of the Warships leaving the area near the rest of the fleet was okay for the Colonials. Not only was the SLS Nike, an AI like a Cylon. Word had gotten out, before they had left New Circe, that she was being refitted with salvaged Cylon drives. That had not sat well, with the Colonials. The two warships, armed dropships, fighters, and jump fighters would be the protective wall, which the evacuation would take place behind.

On the Ground, contact teams had been set up a few months ago. All so that almost 100,000 people would be ready to leave when the convoy arrived. Well, as ready as you can get with a planet with over 380 thousand people living on it. Not all would be leaving this planet, but over 90 percent of the population was planning on leaving at some level of understanding. They also were taking as much as they could, when they left this world. The cargo and passenger ships started falling from high orbit to different locations around the globe in a pre-planned pattern.

The two massive infantry transports landed at the two largest population centers on the planet. The livestock lifter was set up at a third point, which just happened to be between the other two large dropships. All manner of small craft, from Raptors to Star League landing craft, were landing in other places around the planet. Those smaller craft would fill up, and then take their live cargos to the nearest spaceship. Sometimes they would fly to either one of the Generals or to a landed Colonial ship, and then take off again to gather another group of living cargo.

The first few hours after landing were a mad house, as was expected by the crews on those ships. Some of the areas were already at local dark, when the spaceships taking them to their new home had landed. That did not mean that a few thousand people and animals, were not loaded by the time everyone was into the rhythm of getting the job done. The rescue ships worked their crews in shifts, to maximize the number of hours they could work before needing to stop the loading for sleep. This race was planned to be a marathon, and not a sprint. That was the plan anyway, and as with any plan. The enemy has a say.

They were three days into the evacuation, when the Cylon Heavy Raiders jumped into the system. It was not alone, but one of a dozen like craft spread out in a wide arc that covered a few thousand miles. The idea was that they could lose one or even four of the Raiders. Then at least a few of them would get word back to the nearest Cylon Basestars. In this case, only one of the up armored craft was able to make it out of the system, in one piece. Captain Ferry was still flying his flag on the Zug, and he issued an order that he had hoped that he never would on this mission.

Now all of the ships that were filled with evacuees from the planet, would leave the system as soon as their drives were spun up. Each ship would make a fast trip back to New Circe. As any new ship was filled with its living cargo, it would launch and leave the system on its own. The idea was to pull out as many people, as they could. All before the hammer of the Cylon fleet fell onto their heads.

It took four more days for the hammer to fall on Nike's World. In that time? Almost two dozen of the smaller Colonial spaceships were filled to the gills of living cargo, and they had successfully fled the system. The original plan had it, that the Styx's dropships were going to be the last ships to get off of the planet. That changed now that Cylons were almost there. There now were two Unions, one Lion, one Confederate, and a small Fury class dropship on the planet. Those would be the last ships, to leave the planet. It was hoped that if the Cylons landed forces on the planet's surface? Those forces would be able to slow the attackers down. Each of the combat dropships would land near one of the higher capacity ships. They would act as a speed bump to any Cylon forces, which might try to cut off the fleeing humans.

 **15 Feb 3049**

 **Nike's World in Space**

SLS Nike was out at the edge of the fleet, when her upgraded sensors started passing warnings to her small crew. She was faster at getting ready for those reports than her biologic crew. All around the ship, she spoke to each crew member that needed just a little more push. On the command center, the holo deck showed a woman with black eyes.

"Okay people! We have Cylon jumpdrives. I have ten Basestars and one that is odd. Second group jumping in, and I'm passing along what I'm getting to the flagship. The second group is different from normal Cylon ships. They look like Colonial civilian ships."

Alan Gibson was still putting on his uniform top. The holo projection of the avatar of the ship's "person". Threw his ship's top, he more or less mumbled. It was loud enough for the "ship" to understand and to pass it along.

"Launch the fighters and get yourself ready for skeet."

Nike was giving an evil grin threw the projection, and her solid black eyes almost glowed. "They will not like seeing me, this time. I was getting tired of running out of autocannon ammunition."

When the SLDF had finally started working on the hulk, which had been the outer shell of the Caspar known as SLS Nike. They had made some modification to what the Star League had thought was appropriate for a weapon like her. They had not done all of the modifications, that she wanted them to do. But even she knew that money did not grow on trees. That didn't mean that she was not going to complain about it at every opening she could find.

They first had updated her armor plate that wrapped her hull, and it had been missing in more places than she wanted to think about. It had been for the simple reason, that they did not have time to make the old-style armor she had been "born" with in any large amounts. By the time they started working on her. She was missing more armor poundage, than she had left fixed to her outer hull. Besides, she had really liked her new dress. She had also liked the artificial gravity plates, so that she could jump anywhere she wanted. That had been the second major upgrade, after her armor had been stripped off.

With the delay due to her trial that had left her unfinished, the locals had advanced a little when the work had restarted. This had been long enough, for the new high rate of fire cannons to be around to replace most of her close in defense weapons against fighters. They even gave her deep magazines to support the ammunition hungry weapons. The last had cost her a few missiles reloads for her long shooters, but she could live with two less Barracudas. All of her remaining nuclear warheads had been removed and recycled into newer weapons. She now had only a dozen "real" ship killers in her magazines, but at least these were not likely to just "fizzle" if they hit an enemy warship. She was pushing as hard as she could, to get more heavy warheads. She had even sent a copy of the classified SLDF Navy doctrine report, on how to use ships of her class. It clearly stated that between half and two thirds of her missile magazine should be filled with nuclear tipped weapons. So far, she had not gotten a response to that email.

During her second major refit, they had made more changes. At first it was mostly to fix issues left over from the first refit. After the first month, those plans were again changed. They had not been able to give her the new laser anti-missile systems in any numbers, but they had replaced and updated all of her secondary weapons with clan tech. She was looking forward to seeing what those 32 second generation medium pulse lasers would do to any Raiders or Heavy Raiders. But the prize was the 32 LR PPCs they had sprinkled around her hull. She was betting that if she came in just right, she could take out a Basestar just with them.

She was always seeing room for improvements, like having to leave three weeks early for the big push they were still planning out. If that planning failed to be done in time. Her orders had been to take up position in the system named after her and take out any Cylons that might show up. She was one jump from this system. The Zug and her convoy of Colonial ships caught up to her, just as she was about to finish her last double jump to get to her end point. Nike was not happy about trash haulers being able to get someplace faster than she could. She made a note to address this issue the next time she was in the New Circe system.

The lack of major numbers of laser anti-missile systems, had caused some problems on some of her later missions. That had been fixed with her last refit. She had been given 24 more laser anti-missile systems. She could not "super jump", but she had tested some of the theories using her old drive and the artificial gravity deck plating she was now packing. In this case the rumors were wrong. She did not have a salvaged Cylon jump drive. She was scheduled to be given a civilian jump drive recovered from Admiral Adama's second run back to old Colonial space. She just had to wait for her turn to come up, to get the yard time. With all of the battle damage the fleet had been soaking up, that might take a while to get her that drive to replace her current one.

The Number One called John was on the Dreadstar. He was taking in the data from the modified systems spread out around him. The sensors were a mix of Colonial hard tech and current Cylon wet interface. He had just noticed that his fleet had not jumped into the right location he had expected. They should have jumped in close to the planet, but for some reason they were over 24 AU from that expected location.

 _"_ _The ferryman is here! The Dragon is here! It's time to pay the ferryman, but we do not have any Drachma. We will have to pay in blood and fall to the Dragon's fire. End of line."_

John had to look around to find out what the hybrid was mumbling about. He had wanted to use this modified Basestar without one of those things, but he had quickly found out that he needed their management ability to handle all of the new systems. He was thinking that somehow the skittish bio matter was able to get into the navigation system, and it had shifted their entry point into this star system. He made a mental note in the interface to check on that.

All thoughts of that note were lost, when he recognized what he had heard and what his systems were telling him. He had come up with this modified Basestar to fight one ship, and he had spent over a year tracking down any report of a Cylon seeing that one special human vessel. Now it seemed that being forced to support this cleansing mission was going to pay off.

John gave a few quick orders and all thoughts of the hybrid were forgotten. He had something he wanted very badly to kill or otherwise destroy. These human ships were not his white whale. But there were two large human warships in this system, and he had the right harpoon to take care of them. When this was done? He could go look for his true target but if he caused enough damage, and he spread it out long enough. Then maybe it would come to him. He could work with that, and after all. All that truly mattered was that all of the humans died.

It did not take long for the Cylons small craft to decide that getting as close as they could to a SLDF ship, the better it was for them. They could jump almost close enough to touch her hull, if they were in a small enough ship and were a good enough pilot. It had not taken the Nike long to have run up an impressive kills totals, now that she was back under the flag of the SLDF. Today was only going to add to that list of kills, and not just in small craft. She was interested in collecting a few new capital kill markers to be painted in her wardroom.

Nike and her now two dozen attached fighters had blown away a few thousand raider and heavy raiders. It had started climbing faster after she had been sent on her first mission after her trial. Now the Cylons did not even use "normal" Raiders but for anything but scouting. They had proven to be a waste of metal, fuel, bio matter, and time for any other missions in this part of space. What the humans did not know, was that the Cylon fleet still held a few thousand "normal" Raiders sitting around. They normally were used well away from this area of space.

The joint Colonial and SLDF forces had not seen a full squadron of Raiders in almost a year and a half. The Heavy Raiders were now also harder to kill, with a second upgrade package being seen in the last few months. The most obvious was that they had added a second engine to the large craft. It was center mounted over and on top of the aft center engine. This raised the total number of power units to four on those large craft. The reports coming in from Ragnar had said that an even newer version of the Heavy Raiders were starting to come off the lines back in old Colonial space.

The reason for this new engine? It was not for speed, but to overcome the mass they were adding in weapons and a lot more armor plate to the craft. The newest upgraded Heavy Raiders only carried two KEWs, in place of the six in a nose pack on the earlier upgraded craft. These were now mainly missile boats. Cylon missiles packed a lot of firepower, and they were true fire and forget weapons on today's battlefield. Also, nuclear weapons were coming more and more commonly use for the already nuclear weapons happy Cylons. Even the Cylons could not invent nuclear weapons out of thin air. Every time they launched one that did not produce a kill? That was one nuclear weapon that they did not have for later use. And the humans had suddenly fielded systems that could sweep the sky of missiles. Even their shuttle sized fighters could take out capital scale missiles, before they were close to a targeted human ship.

Nike was working out a dozen different plans to fight this current battle, but in the end. It was her Captain's job to come up with a plan, and then execute it. Gibson was reviewing a list of ideas, which she had come up with. Some were very good, and others? They were right out of old TV shows, and not in a good way. Then his eyes floated to the main display, it showed the enemy capital ships. Something was off, in the data he was seeing.

"Ah Nike? What is that odd one doing? It looks like he is trying to hide behind the rest of the other Basestars."

Nike played with her passive scanners and let her backup core have some fun killing the Cylon small craft with energy and shorter ranged missile weapons. She could have used her active systems to get a lot more data, but that would have blown her cover. She was acting and looking like the Riga Class ship. She, if not the rest of the SLDF Navy had found out, that if the Cylons knew who she was? They would go after her, above any other target in a whole star system. That might be useful, later on. It was always best, when the enemy was reacting to you. It helped to control the battlespace, but it still had a downside.

The avatar winked out for a second and then came back on. "Well Frak! Your right. It's a new type of Basestar. It looks like they put on a thicker outer coating of Colonial armor, and it looks like they have mounted almost twice the number of engines found on a Jupiter class Battlestar. They have them all mounted on its backside, and they are hard to get a reading on how powerful they might be. I'm looking at its flight path since they jumped in. It looks to be trying to work around the edges of the fleet. It could be trying to spring something on the Zug."

Gibson nodded. That was new, and he hated it when Cylons did something new. "Okay Nike let the chicks know, that we are changing plans. Let's start working on one edge of their fleet, and start taking out Basestars. How is your play list?"

The avatar was jumping up and down on her display table. On the nose of the warship her two twin 60cm laser turrets were twitching left, right, and up and down in time to the display on the bridge. "Oh! Do I get to make their ears bleed? Query Affirmative? I hope they don't like it." She stopped moving and folded her hands behind her body of light, and she tried to look ashamed. "Does that make me a bad person?"

Gibson could not help but smile. Nike had gotten less crazy, after she got to kill a lot of Cylons. If they spent too long in port? She reverted to her old ways, after a few months. "No, Nike it does not. That is unless your taste in music is as bad as your taste in video entertainment. Then I would say that all bets are off. Query Affirmative."

Now Nike was defensive, while she multi tasked as she bantered with her captain and fought the battle outside her hull. "Evil Dead was a very interesting show. All ten movies and remakes were worth the time to watch. I am ready to go active, Captain." The last statement was a little waspy sounding, but Alan didn't mind.

The Cylons had found a way to block Nikes transmissions months ago. Before she had been able to short out their systems. So the Cylons had put in a special circuit, which would activate when it picked up a power surge of her transmitter in the general area. It would cut the communication lines, and the Cylon would stop receiving any outside signals for about ten seconds. After the break, the Cylon craft would try to activate its network capability. It the new circuit found her transmissions in the general area again. The special circuit would activate again. It would keep doing this until the battle was over. While it was "offline" they tended to fight dumb. But between close contacts with Nike? They would fight like "normal" Cylon raiders and heavy raiders. This was going to be the first time for a new tactic, to be used by Nike. She was going to blanket the radio range all up and down the spectrum, with her collection of "music" that she had in her archives. The term was from 20th century earth, was called active broadband jamming.

The AG plates let Nike put her rebuilt plasma throwing sub light engines to full power without killing her limited crew, and she flooded the air waves. Gibson's ears felt like they were about to start bleeding, as something called "Teen Spirit" came through the speaker mounted on the Bridge's or CIC walls at an incredible volume.

Gibson had to yell to hear his own voice. "NIKE! THE IDEA IS TO DISTRACT THE CYLONS. NOT US!"

Nike was smiling and as the word Cylon passed Gibson's mouth, the music cut off. "I'm sorry Captain. Did you say something?"

Nike could tell from the look, that she had scored a point in their little on-going game. "On the other hand, Captain. The second group of Cylons just performed a micro jump. They are in the planets high upper atmosphere and dropping quick. I am tracking six Intersun or Olympic Carrier class Passenger Cruisers. They are the ones that are just under 835 feet long."

Alan Gibson's mind was going in about a dozen different directions. Then he stopped on one item from a history book he had just finished. "A landing ship, like an LST or assault ship of some kind. Nike, how many Centurions can they put on something like that?"

Nike's head looked up at her Captain, and again she was surprised that he had come up with something she had not. Well that was not totally true. In one of the ten thousand scenarios she had run, landing ships had come up. It had only taken the equivalent of half a human lifetime of thinking to come up with that idea. Her captain had come up with it in less than ten seconds.

"They could put between 2,000 and 3,000 Centurions on something that size. It will depend on how many human forms, Tinmen, or Praetorians they are carrying along with the Centurions." Nike was speaking with a very dull tone. It was the tone that she used, when she was being tasked heavy by what was going on around her. Computers only had so many resources. That was true even for a Caspar.

Alan nodded. "Fight the battle, pass to flag what we think is about to happen dirtside. As soon as the Admiral gives the word to let the nuks go. Do not wait for me to say go, just do it Nike. Query affirmative."

The little black-eyed female projection now rubbed her hands together in mock glee, or maybe it was not so mock. "Oh Good! I cannot wait to see how those new Barracuda Ns will do. We need another five minutes to get the nose and forward lasers onto the nearest Basestar. We may have to go to reduced firing on the autocannons. They are starting to overheat, and we will need them when the Basestars start to fire."

The Cylons were not the only ones who liked throwing magic mushrooms around. The current extended ranged anti-fighter missiles of the SLDF had been fitted with a "light" nuclear warhead, only about 15ktons worth of explosive. This had been done with the mixing of Cylon, Colonial, and some ideas that Nike had found somewhere. This might be the first battle that these long range, hard to hit, smart, and small missiles might get a kill against a Cylon capital ship.

Back in the days of the old Star League. They had used massive waves of Barracuda type missiles to keep fighters away from their main battle fleet of Warships, and to a lesser extent their fleets of dropships. Killing a Cylon 1.8km long Basestar was not easy, and it could not be done with just a handful of conventionally armed missiles. Cylons could take out a sky full of missiles and throw an equal sky full of missiles back at an attacker. That is if the Capital ship and her swarm of smaller craft were working together in a seamless fashion. That was what the book said, and sometimes it was right. But the book had not thought about SLDF, energy weapons, and a ship called the Nike.

The Captain of the Caspar ship SLS Nike, felt the ship go to past full power and into over thrust. He could feel the shaking of the ship's frame as cannon shots and missiles were launched from her. And again, he was thankful that it had been fitted with Colonial made artificial gravity plates. But when her plasma engines went to that level of power? There was a so slight of a lag, before the Colonial systems kicked in. For just a second, everyone in the very small crew felt all 4.5 g's her engines were putting out. It was just long enough for the biologics to know someone had spurred the horse and be equally thankful that those plates were active.

Nike grayed out for a second, and then came back as bright as ever on her display. The twin heavy laser turrets on the nose of the ship fired along with the single heavy triple turret on the forward left and right sides of her ship. "We are taking them out by the boat load with the HOD and LR PPCs. And they just walked into my laser anti-missile system. You know, that if you hit one of those new heavy raiders with enough of them at one time? They would die, and you can take that R and D! I was right again."

She gave a slender one finger salute to something not in the holo display. "Target one just folded up. She could not handle that many of my 55 Lasers. That Odd One is now heading our way. It's moving about 10 percent faster than the Pegasus can in normal space. I think they know that I'm here. I told you that they would get wise after I fired my nose bays."

Gibson grunted, and shook his head from side to side. He had a slight smile on his face, as he went to score a point in their game. "I thought we kill that thing already. Are you having a bore sighting issue again, or is it your age causing your eyesight to fail?"

Nike had a matching look for Gibson at the age comment, and she made a note to adjust his shower water temperature in the common latrine. "I know that I took it down, last time they threw a modified Basestar at me. Do you think they have a whole shipyard up and running? That would suck, if they are mass producing those things. This one looks more finely fitted, than that other Frankenstein we ran into. We only had to use my old fraking aft thruster assembly, and it died. This one seems to be wanting to keep the range more open. Do you think this is commanded by a Number One? I would bet that the first Frankenstein had a 5 or a 2 at the controls. They kind of have one-track minds, and the Ones are different."

Outside of the 670,000ton ship. She was moving and now acting more like a large fighter, than a huge warship. She was rolling, diving, and doing anything that her warped mind could come up with. If she thought of it, she did it. All the while she was targeting the closing wave of missiles and Cylon heavy raiders. She was not taking them all out of play, but she was thinning the crowd by both weapons fire and using her thick hull armor to detonate the warheads or crush the small craft hulls. Sometimes she would fire one of her massive naval lasers. She would play it across the sky dust, like the flashlight on a god sized scale. Sometimes it would turn half a dozen or more Cylon small craft into flash fried droplets of organic and inorganic material. Most of the time it would miss, but even then, if it flashed close to some of the Cylon missiles. They were taken out of the battle just due to the "flux" the energy weapons left in their wake. After all they had never been designed to deal with energy weapons.

Her mix of class 5 HOD, pulse lasers, Anti missiles systems, LR PPCs and long ranged sub capital missiles were in rapid fire mode. They were laying out an interlace pattern of destruction, but sometimes you had to hit your targets more than once in a very short amount of time to take them out of the battle. Also, her suite of her capital weapons, besides the lasers. They carried names like Killer Whale and White Shark, and they were in play today.

Those same weapons, which had just killed its third Cylon Basestar in this battle. Three of the missiles had come from the nose bays and had made it through the crossfire. It was just by luck that they had followed a strike by the NL-55s on the central hub, that held both halves of the semi organic Basestar together. The flaming pencils of death had only been a pair of seconds behind the laser blast, and they entered the ship while it was still outgassing from the focused energy. The clouds of organics were the final mask that had protected the diving weapons. The weapons had no idea that they were behind the hard-outer layers of the target. The three weapons hit three different areas within that small cross section of the ship. Two "only" put a few tons of explosives on different main support members that ran between the two Y sections. Even without the third missile, that would have hurt the great Cylon warship. It was the third weapon that killed it. It was just by luck that it hit the jump engine. That was bad enough, when it released its pent-up energy. But the auxiliary fuel tank really did not like the visits the Killer Whale had paid this area.

The top of the Basestar started to come apart. Two of the three arms were still attached and moving away from the central hub. The great warship could have continued the battle missing those two arms and the bagel toaster like launching bays. But when the jump engine and the fuel tank exploded? That was the end of the warship. It was now just a blast cloud that only Zero G could make, and a short-term navigation hazard.

One of the nearby Basestars had to make a sudden course change, just to avoid one of the arms of the ship as it came speeding by. It was just unfortunate that this course change put the ship in the path of a quartet of HNPPCs that had missed its intended target. Those four powerful beams of purple energy were not enough to "kill" a ship of that size. But this ship had been hit by rounds fired from Colonial made Coil guns as well as "smaller" Capital scale lasers. It was too much, and this Cylon ship would not be able to support the cloud of Heavy Raiders with rearming or covering missile fire on their attack runs.

On the Zug, Captain Ferry was looking at an enemy ship that he had not even targeted be destroyed by his ship's weapons fire. There were good and bad things that you had to deal with, when you fought beside the Nike. One bad thing was having to deal with crews that did not like or trust the AI. Another bad thing was having to read all of the reports she would turn out. Then there was having to deal with her "in person". It was like dealing with one of his teenage granddaughters, but one that was a few hundred years old.

One of the good things about fighting alongside the old AI warship. It was watching her fight like a fighter. He could only shake his head as the over half a million-tons of warship stood on its tail and spin around on her main axis like it was on ice skates. She also had a habit of spending more time in the repair yards or needing extra crews to repair damage, both directly and indirectly related to combat with the Cylons.

Captain Ferry had to smile, and it was not just on the insides. "You have to admit that the Cylons have a hard on for that girl." He had secretly enjoyed some of the music Nike had used during training. He liked it more, when she used Immigrant song to fill the radio waves. She would loop it for two or three iterations. Just as he thought about that song, it started coming over the speakers.

The XO of the battleship heard his boss say something, but he did not catch it. "Sir?"

The tall thin officer turned slightly to see his second in command. "I was just noticing that over half of the firepower coming from all of those Basestars, and about two thirds of the Cylon small craft have been giving Nike a lot of attention."

More than a few heads turned to see the data on some of the nearest displays. Captain Ferry made a face, as he noticed that not one of his senior officers had noticed this fact. "Contact the Nike. When she is ready, she can launch level one nuclear weapons, but only level one. Then let the supply department know that we might need to shift part of our stocks of class 5 autocannon ammunition to her."

That was all of the orders that needed to be given by the human that the Cylons called the Ferryman. The bridge and the rest of the staff didn't even notice when four heavy missiles hit across the top of the great battleship. By now the SLDF had worked out a way, with a lot of help from the Colonials, to work out what missiles were packing nuclear weapons. They were not up to a hundred percent on picking them up over 100km out. But they were very good.

More than one idea had been passed around to make an "Escort" for the big guns. They ranged in ideas of using a heavy fighter outfitted with a dozen Laser anti-missile systems, to converting a combat dropship in the same fashion. He had even seen an idea to convert one of the Colonial cargo ships into an "escort" to handle the missile and Raider wave attacks.

In a flash Nike launched five very small, well small for capital weapons, missiles out of her forward tubes. As soon as the weapons left her AR-10 multi missile launcher, she was acting as fast as her ancient computers could. She flashed out of existence in a burst of radiation, which would have fried any computer that was not made in the "Age of War". Some would have thought that she had just been blown-up by a major nuclear strike, that somehow had made it threw her defense. Or maybe a weapon had malfunctioned or something like that?

What had happened? It was that she activated her jump engines, and she had done her own micro jump. It was used as a tactical maneuver to help her set up for the next part of the battle. It was just like what the Cylons had done to the Colonial navy, at the start of the war to wipeout the human race. Because it was done by such a large ship, and her drive worked a little differently than Cylon and Colonials systems. She was a ship that was almost the size of a Battlestar, and her engines also had a slight secondary effect in the area she had just left.

Her fully charged K-F Drive used a staggering amount of energy to rip a whole in the universe, and it was given up within a nanosecond. This energy wave was a lot less stable than a Colonial or Cylon made system, and a bubble of destruction moved out at the speed of light from the Nike. The energy wave wiped out ever Cylon Heavy Raider and Missile within 500 miles, of were the Lola III class hull had been until only a hand full of seconds before. Nike had only waited until her own weapons were outside of the area of effect before, she had jumped. Those five weapons would kill two more Basestars, but the third would still be in the battle. That was thanks to the salvaged colonial made armor plate lightly spread on most of the surfaces of the Cylon ships.

With the loss of over half of their fleet. The Cylons started to pull back further from the planet and away from the star. The heavy Basestar now was in the front of the Cylon battle fleet. It was exchanging cannon fire from her Mercury class bow weapons and a new heavier class missile. The McKenna class ship was the center of John's attention, but he could multitask. When the Nike "popped" back into space. She was hit with a dozen heavy rounds as soon as she was "fully" in the star system. It would seem that the Cylons had figured out where she was going to be, after her jump.

Gibson was rocked in his command chair, and the hologram of the black-eyed woman flickered and almost went out for a second. She looked back at him, and he could see the concern on her face. "We just took half a dozen very heavy KEW's. It seems that all of the Cylon Basestars have added some heavy weapons, the damage profile is that of a Colonial coil gun. I am engaging the nearest target with my bow and port laser turrets. They seem to be pulling back. I think they wanted to take a break from combat. Do you want me to let them pull back?"

The Captain of the vessel took in the information. "No, Nike. That is why you have all of that thick and expensive armor. If you can take out the nearest Basestar, go for it. Then let them pull back but put as much damage on them as you can, while they are in range. The more time we can give the people on the ground. The more people they can evacuate, the better for the clan. Our mission is to get those people, not take out major Cylon fleet units."

Nike did not argue with her captain. Letting an enemy ship pull back was not a normal action, not for her or the SLDF. Then again, this was "her world" and she had wanted to protect them as much as any bio form that reported to the SLiE. She would do what needed to be done to protect them. She had a slight smile, as another one of the Cylon capital warships fell to her guns. As long as an enemy ship was within range of her guns? She would launch her rage against them, and maybe if they saved enough. She would be able to "sleep" without dreams of her past failure.

The two fleets now were out of range of each other for anything but human jump fighters and Cylon Heavy Raiders. The humans had now centered all of their forces and attention on the planet, after the enemy battle fleet had disengaged. The Cylons were holding position further out from the liquid water zone of the Star. They had not expected to fight so much firepower, when they planned this mission. They were okay sitting and waiting for their second part of the fleet to show up, and then the battle could be rejoined. This was only the first part of the battle that the Cylons had planned. It was just going to be more expensive, than the Cylon Empire had originally planned for.

 **15 Feb 3049**

 **Nike's World on the ground**

On the ground things were not looking…that great. As the population groupings had lifted off of the planet? There were fewer points to defend around the planet, but also there were fewer defenders to be able to degrade the Cylon's number of ground forces. And still not everyone was willing to leave the planet. That is until things started to explode over their heads as proof, that some very bad guys were coming. This was the last straw and many more of the locals had suddenly decided, that maybe finding a new home was a very good idea.

With combat units of the Cylons in the system. It was now proven, that Colonel Gao had been correct about demanding ground forces to accompany this mission. When Colonel Gao landed her forces on the planet? They went about setting up defensive points, which experience had proven to have some effect on the Cylon ground units. The SLDF did not deploy any combat engineers on this mission, which might have been an oversite in the planning. Now was no time to cry over spilled milk, and the ground forces would just have to improvise.

Captain Roberson was looking into the sky and frowned. She was supporting one of the modified Mammoths infantry carriers and the Bovine. She had deployed her unit in a thin circle around the grounded dropships. The idea had been that, if a short notice attack happened. She would have some firepower to slow them down, so that the rest of the company could come running to support the beleaguered unit.

Now that the attack was coming, in the form of what might be ex-Colonial made passenger liners. This had made her change her deployment. Now her whole unit now was aligned on the most likely avenue of advance the Cylons might come up. There was a big difference when you had to deal with small groups of Cylons coming off Heavy Raiders. This was looking like the Cylons were going to use those liners like the SLDF had used dropships. They were going to land their troops in one or very few massive localized assaults against the humans.

She looked around at her first defensive line. It was thin, but it was only the first line of defense. The second line was even thinner held, then the first line. The last line was defended by about the same number of defenders, but each machine was heavier than what the other two lines were made up of. It was not much, but it was all she had. No one had thought that there would be this kind of ground combat. To date? All of the ground fighting outside of Colonials space had been in small groups or on small bases. The mass landing of those liners was going to be something new, for the ground forces to have to deal with. It was looking like keeping up on the counter clan and inner sphere tactics was about to pay off.

By now, all the 835-foot-long Colonial liners had dropped out of her line of site. You could not hide a Mammoth. At least not without using a lot of time and even more time, when you needed to get the massive beast off the ground. That time had not been spent on hiding, but on loading as many people as they could. The defenders now needed to buy some time with their blood, sweat, and in a few cases tears.

For half an hour, all she could do was stew in her own juices as she waited for the hammer to fall on her command. That changed when her scout had fallen back far enough from the enemy landing site to transmit his report. Now she was wishing that she didn't know what was coming for her. Over her encoded radio, a recorded image was playing again. It was a good and high definition recording of all six landed ships. She had not risked a scouting mech that close to the threat. That was what you had technology for. To take the risks you did not want a person to have to deal with.

Off of those ships, had landed and unloaded an army. It was not just Centurions and human forms coming off of them, but a massive number of Praetorian combat mechs. Then came something that had only been reported from places a long way from here. It was the largest deployment of those machines, which anyone had been alive to report about. She watched the massive machines roll out of the cargo holds and landing bays of those ships. As she saw each one, she wished that the rest of the Battalion was not scattered across the rest of the planet.

They were massive, chunky, and moved on four sets of mid-length heavy metal tracks. They were large machines that were reported to mass about 75tons. They were slow and heavily armored, for a 1st Cylon war tank. The Colonials called them Rhinos and not tanks. They didn't have the history of using the 1916 cover name. They were called Tinmen by SLDF and that name had migrated to be used by the Colonials.

As Captain Roberson watched the massive T structure on top of the armored base move. She could now see the six heavy cannons, and they were short almost stubby looking things. She knew that each of the tubes were a 180mm Recoilless Cannon. The Colonials said that they used a 60kg shell to fire a 28kg HE or HEAT warhead. They were great bunker or building busters, as the Cylons had shown in the first war.

Those were not the only weapons the Tinman carried. On the nose was a twin turret that packed a pair of long barreled 25mm KEWs. They were different from the Viper and Raider carried 30mm KEWs. These hit a lot harder thanks to the heavier propellant charge and the longer barrel. On Viper and Raiders, you had to trade off on every kg of weight. That was not so much of an issue with a ground unit. How would those rounds stack up against Battlemech armor? Now that was the Million-dollar question.

As Captain Robinson watched more and more Tinmen rolling onto the flat ground. The real worry was the two strangely placed ready to fire Gorgon long ranged Anti Air missiles on each tank. They could mount a 10kton nuclear warhead, and they might have a limited ground attack capability. Even if they were "only" packing a 200kg "normal" explosive warhead. That could hurt most of the light mechs under her command. These last weapons were ones, that the SLDF currently didn't have an answer for. Well other than add more armor and more anti-missile systems to anything that might run afoul of them.

Nike had been right. They could have carried almost 2500 Centurions in each of those ships. On two of these converted Colonial ships? They had carried almost that number of walking metal death, but the rest of the space was used to carry human forms to command them after they landed. On the other four ships? 6m tall walking forms came walking off of the ships, one after the other. They were joined by 4 Tinmen coming from each of the converted Colonial ships. 24 of the ugly tanks slowly moved away from the landing area.

It took them some time for the bipedal Cylons to form up. The Converted passenger ships were not designed as combat assault craft, and modifications can only go so far in a given length of time. They were picked, because they were available and for the mass they could carry to a planet's surface. Still it would not take long, before all of that combat power would be heading towards the human defenders like a god sized metal walking hammer.

The seismic system tripped on Captain Robinson's machine, and her head came up from dozing in her cockpit. Her eyes focused just in time to see the Clan tech modified Spector, come running threw her defense line. Its ECM and Beagle systems along with its very rare Chameleon Light Polarization shield and Null signature system, all had made this old machine a top of the line scout and headhunter for her people. Normally this specialized and in high demand machine was not assigned to her unit or even to her Battalion. It was normally a division level unit and had been loaned to her company for this mission.

The mech jock at its controls would not stop, until it reached the third and last line of defense that was nearest to the evacuating dropships. If things went bad? It would be the first mech to reload onto the Union class dropship or the Confederate that had dropped it on this planet. Its three energy weapons would not add that much to the battle. At least not enough to risk the loss of this machine, anyway. It would not stay out of the battle, but it would have to be looked after.

All down the line, to her left and right, the rest of the lance made slight adjustments to get ready to greet the enemy. This lance was a proven killer of Cylons, and a lot of work had been put into designing it that way. It was made up of two 25ton Locust IIC, that were more or less hand built by a custom shop in McEvedy City. They currently had only eight of those machines in the whole SLDF ground order of battle.

The SLDF had the plans for them for over a hundred years, but they had not needed them. The machine had been in Clan use since 2832. Clan Wolverine already had the updated Sling and other machines, that could do the same job for the clan before the coming of the Cylons. Each of the 25ton Locust can be built in a handful of small shops and supplied by parts from around the planet. All parts were built on the operator's free time. Then the finished mech would be sold to the military. They each were fitted with eight clan grade ER Small Lasers, 1 second gen medium pulse laser, and ten second generation of high-efficient heatsinks, to keep it cool in extended combat. This pair had recently replaced two 25ton Sling class omni machines under her command for testing.

The rest of the lance was rounded out by another pair of 30ton Mercury III omni mechs. The back stop for this light lance, was her ancient 90ton modified Emperor. It had been pulled out of the cache site two years ago. They had taken off the two old class ten LBX cannons, and the same happened to the two large lasers. They moved the head mounted medium laser to cover her back from any Cylons that wanted to climb up her rear.

In place of those missing main weapons, was a pair of Class 5 HOD, with ten tons of ammunition to feed those very hungry beasts. The hard part had been fitting five of the new laser anti-missile systems onto the machine. The lasers AMS were mounted on each of the arms, on each of the shoulders and the last one was mounted on the back of her machine. To keep the machine, cool for the longer combat time they had been experiencing. They had put in thirty of the most top of the line heatsinks that New Circe could make. It was made to fight the long battle and to try to counter the larger numbers that the Cylons would throw into a battle.

She loved the machine as soon as she had seen it. In a top of the line unit, like hers. She should have been sitting in at least one of the new Riflemen III Omni 80 tons mechs or one of the massive Pulverizer II omni. The Riflemen was a new machine, only about a year old, but it had been designed to fight the clan decades ago. They were being outfitted to fight this new enemy with new weapons options, but she had liked "the lines" of this older machine. So, when she had seen one being worked on? She had asked for it to be her ride. The nice thing about being in a first-tier unit. You had a lot of leeway in what you could take into battle. Your commander could veto what you wanted, but that was rare.

In front of the line of the SLDF mechs, which was blocking the valley, was a kill ground that had been specifically picked by the captain. This valley was one that the Cylons needed to advance up to reach the crowd of civilians and the dropship they were boarding. The only thing that the books said the SLDF needed, and they did not have were mines and field artillery.

Around a turn in the steep sided valley, to the front of the defenders. A wave of almost 500 Centurions and a dozen Human forms riding the backs of the metal machines made the turn. They came into view at the full charge of metal legs moving in a blur of motion. There was a clear line of fire from the SLDF line, to the wave of on rushing metal. Not even a tree or rock was higher than knee high to a Colonial. It had taken the locals and SLDF a few hours to make it this way, and it had only been done a half hour before the lone Scout mech had made it back to the defense lines.

Captain Robinson sighted down the valley and pulled the trigger for her mix Colonial and SLDF tech autocannons. Five hard metal darts that came out of each arm at a huge rate of fire and speed. When each of those darts hit a metal Centurion? They were blowing them apart and then they could go on down range to take out a few more. All before they ran out of energy or stopped skipping after they hit the dirt. The term was called grazing fire and it had been around since black powder cannons had first been put on the battlefield.

The current generation of Centurion was over twice as hard to kill, as when the two sides had first started to clash. The human forms had added more armor all around the machine, but the most obvious addition was a thick metal shield that a real roman Centurion would have had no problem recognizing. This added protection, but only on the battlefield. This added protection would not add to the increasing issue of wearing joints and day to day operational issues, that the up armoring of Centurions was already causing.

The Cylon line kept coming towards the defenders like the waves in the ocean. They would just jump or walk over their fallen fellows at the run. They kept closing until just after they hit the engagement range of the second-generation medium pulse lasers. As soon as those energy weapons started striking the Cylons. They finally decided that they were not going to blow through this line of defenders, and they started pulling back. They left almost 300 metal or bleeding bodies on the valley floor, before they had come to this conclusion. When they had started to pull back out of the line of fire, the defenders had kept the fire up. When the fire had stopped, another 50 Cylons were added to the nonfunctional list on the valley floor.

Captain Robinson saw the Cylons start to pull back, and she came off the defensive line. She pulled back about a quarter of a mile and behind a small hill. She would be reloading her machine at the forward support point hidden behind the hill. This attack had only been the scouts, or first echelon forces of the Cylons. The heavy hitters were slower, and they would take longer to get to her firing line. She had gone through a lot of her cluster rounds, and she needed to top off her ammo bins and to cool her machine down.

One of the lessons learned about fighting Cylons, in the early days of the war. It was that you reloaded whenever you might possibly could, even if you only had used three or four rounds. You used any free time to top off your ammunition. You might not have time later. Fighting waves of Cylons hand to hand, because you had run out of ammunition sucked. After she was done, and the other machines got a chance to pay the area a visit. She ordered the trucks and loader mechs to fall back to the nearest of the dropships. When the Cylons breakthrough, and they would, it was just a matter of when. Those units would be dead meat for anything more than a few dozen Cylons. She had no doubt that they would fight, and they would take down more Cylons than they would lose humans to them. They still would all die, and the Cylons had a massive numerical advantage without throwing their lives away due to bad planning.

The Captain had only just returned to her primary firing point, when she noticed small rocks slides starting down each side of the valley. They were not major slides, and they did not move far down the high sides of the valley before stopping. They were just rocks moving down, stopping, and then maybe sliding some more. Sometimes they would not move until more rocks fell down on them. When she looked down at her mech's systems that did not display on her HUD. Her seismic detector was erroring out, due to the inputs it was having to deal with. There was not a point source for the vibration, the Cylon main army was near. She flipped her radio to short range, just in case the Cylons tried to jam the Radio waves.

"All right people! The metal heads are coming. Stick to the plan. Remember you are faster than they are, and your weapons are better. Do not let them get to close. Query Affirmative"

The wave of Cylons that made the turn around the bend of the valley, was nothing like the first wave had been. This wave was led by a wave of six meter tall walking machines. The arms did not have blades or hands like the Centurions. In their place. Each arm had a KEW cannon of the same type that Vipers, Raiders, and Heavy Raiders carried. Those weapons fired as fast as a SLDF machinegun, but they had both a longer range and hit a little harder.

On the shoulders were missile racks, which held over a dozen missiles on each side. Cylon cannons were crap, but their missiles were another matter. They had the range, in the atmosphere, of a Star League extended ranged large laser. When a Cylon missile had a lock on? It was going to hit, and not even the best generation mech mounted ECM would help in any measurable amount. The only way to deal with them, was to take them down with an AMS or have thick armor. The other way to handle them was very popular by the ground pounders, that might be around to support the mechs. That was to take the Cylons out first, before they launched the missiles into the air.

So far, the SLDF had been lucky. The Cylons had not figured out how to target the cockpits of the mechs, like the old headhunter missiles the old Star League was known to have used for a few generations. They would just randomly hit you. If you were lucky? They hit you on the front arc of your machine. But a lot of the times the misses would loop around and come back at you from behind. That was why they were putting more and more of the laser based anti-missile systems on each machine. They didn't need ammunition, but they had mass and they generated a lot of heat. Those were both issues with a war-machine. Everyone you added, was one less weapon or ton of ammunition that you could not carry into battle.

Behind the walking mini battlemechs came the Rhinos or Tinmen. The range of the heavy cannons was longer than the Raider based KEWs. But how much longer? No one knew, and there was a big difference between maximum range and effective range on the battlefields of the 31st century. Very few within the SLDF military were going to take most of the reports from the Colonials at face value, even if they were only recounting reports from a war that few of them had fought in.

For the start of this battle, it would only be Captain Robinson firing. The light machines were out of sight in different firing positions than what the first wave had seen, waiting. The company commander had the thicker armor and many AMS to handle the attacking weapons. All of the light lance machines were on radio listening silence, and no one wanted to break it. They all could "see" what was going on. They had seen and lived through many Cylon attacks over the last few years, just not with this many heavy enemy units.

Captain Robinson took a light breath and then leaned forward in her command chair. She moved the manual feed switch, with a flip of a covered switch. This switch would lower the "rounds" each cannon could fire. She was packing a prototype of the next generation of HOD. It could have been set as high as four times, but now she lowered it to half that. Each weapon was "only" going to fire two rounds, per weapon, per pull of the trigger. She was going to need to slow down her rate of fire. This was for two main reasons. One was heat, and the other was so that she could stick around on the battlefield longer. The heat from all of the AMS's systems was going to start climbing any second. She was the only target that the Cylons could see, and soon they would try to remove her from the battlefield with heavy weapons fire.

A clock was counting down, and when it told the Captain that the enemy was within range. She pulled up both arms and turned to fully expose her upper torso to the approaching enemy. She lined up on two of the approaching Pretorians as her first targets. One for the left arm, and one for the right arm. With one pull of the trigger, the battle was started.

The 6m tall Cylons were harder to kill than any other Cylons, besides a Basestar. The walking 40ton machines were not that fast, heavily armed, or as heavily armored as a SLDF machine of the same mass. It was just that there was a metric frak ton of them coming at her. And you had to take out the chest on each one of them, to take them out of the battle. The Class 5 HOD would take two or three solid hits, on average, to bring one down if they were using solid shot.

Her solid cannon shells were going down towards her targets, before she felt the recoil of the four rounds leaving her machine. The Cylons were quick off of the mark, and they sent a bunch of self-guided missiles back at her. She was working on taking out her third and fourth walking tank, when the first missile fired to hit her machines arrived. The Cylons could not or did not, fire their entire shoulder mounted rack at one time. The most anyone, which had lived, after having been fired on by one of them. All had said that they would fire no more than two missiles per rack per time. What would get you, was when 6 or 8 of the mini mechs fired 12 to 16 of them at you. All with only a pair of seconds between each groups of flying death.

Her laser AMSs covered her machine in an invisible grid, and they would try to take the missiles out of the air as they were picked up. It was always hoped that if the AMS could take out one of the attacking missiles? That the explosion would take out any nearby enemy missiles. Sometimes it did, and sometimes it did not. Her Modified Emperor started to shake, as the Cylon weapons removed bits of armor plate off of her machine. She was doing her job of being a missile magnet, while she took out most of the long shooters. To date no one had seen the Cylon Praetorian leave the battlefield to reload its missile racks.

The Emperor was moving left, right, forward and back as it fired its arm mounted cannons. She was always under partial cover of some kind, as she pulled the cannon trigger on her control stick. None of the other four mechs were seen or had fired into the closing wave of Cylons. When the Cylons were at the point, which the last attack wave had stopped and started to fall back. The Emperor started slowly walking backwards. She was trying to keep the distance open between her and the Cylons, but not get out of protective cover. She had already put down a dozen Praetorians that would not be getting up in the near future. At least not without a recovery vehicle.

The commander of the Cylon force might have thought, that the one machine was a delaying rear guard unit. With the mech starting to move away from the firing line it had been defending. The Cylons rushed the old defensive line with its fastest units, the 2.5m tall Centurions. The Cylon Centurion was not as obsolete as you might think, when it came down to fighting against battlemechs. They were an armored infantry unit from Hell. More than one Wolverine mech jock had died, when a metal Cylon had ripped open the hatch into their mech's cockpit. The blades would come out, and then so would the mech jock or tank crew, just in very little wet pieces. Then the Centurions would be turned into small pieces as the anti-tempering charge would blow the mech, tank, or aerofighter apart.

When you stepped on a "normal" PBI, with a mech of any size to include the small industrial mechs. It would stop attacking. Normally they would just sit there and bleed out on the ground after even a graze. When you stepped on a Centurion? It still would try to climb up your mech's foot and legs, to get to the human pilot. Even if it did not have anything left below the chest. Seeing this happen, had sent more than a few mech jocks and conventional vehicle crews to have a few long talks with the mental counselor.

With Captain Robinson's pull back to a prearranged point. The smaller Cylons started to run, just as she had planned. The light lance came up to fire from their hidden positions into the wave of over man sized Cylons. The smaller mechs swept the battlefield with small laser and machine guns weapons fire. While the light mechs targeted the smaller and unsupported Cylons. The Captain still took on the larger machines with her heavy weapons, and she was still be the blunt of the incoming missile fire. She had taken down two more Praetorians when she was reminded that she had forgotten something.

That little problems showed up, when a Tinmen fired and hit Captain Robinson dead in the chest in a crash and massive flash of light. Robinson had been looking at lining up her solid shooting autocannons. She was trying to remember if she had shot at one of them before, when her cockpit was awash in glare. Whatever had hit her had opened two of her autocannon ammunitions bays to the sky, and at the same time it removed about a third of her armor over her left chest. She looked up just in time to see one of the Tinmen that she had not noticed coming, fired all 6 of its turreted mounted heavy weapons. She only had time to flinch, and only 4 of the heavy shells hit her chest. The other two hit her right arm in a flash of weapons impact and shower of blasted armor plate. She looked at her armor schematic and winced. Those 180mm shells packed a Frak ton of a punch. Not only could they crack mech armor, they could damage internal components that did not have compromised armor.

"Sweep Lance! Do not let those Tinmen lock up on you. Those turret mounted cannons will put one of you down. Tinmen are Number One targets."

Captain Robinson put her words into action, and she lined up to put a pair of double rate fire Autocannons into the last tank to fire at her. She was rewarded with getting a pair of hits on the front and a single hit on the T shaped turret with the solid rounds. She had to keep moving and that was the only thing that saved her. The tank that she had just hit with three solid rounds, had fired 6 more heavy cannon rounds and sent a stream of rounds from the twin turret mounted low on the forward hull. The heavy rounds missed, but the twin KEW stitched a line of impacts down her right arm from elbow to fingers.

She switched to cluster rounds and jacked up the rate of fire. When she went to aim, her first target was still there. But a new Tinmen was a lot closer, and she took the new and more threatening tank under fire. When she pulled the trigger? She was rewarded with cluster rounds going down range, and that changed when a stomach turning Thunk! sounded threw her cockpit. Her right arm cannon stopped firing just a heartbeat before the left one.

In between the time it took her to look at the display, to find out what had happened to her right arm and look back up. The Cylon tank was a huge ball of flame. She had gone to cluster rounds to see if all of those hard darts could find a soft spot in the tank. And as it worked out, she found one or two. The targeted tank had been turned just slightly towards her, and three of the hard and fast metal darts had found one of the massive Gorgon Ground to Air missiles. It was not surprising that the fuel for such a large weapon did not react well to incoming enemy fire. The long weapon detonated under the abuse, and it both flipped and broke the tank into three parts. The forward and aft hull were now about 4meters apart, and the T turret was sitting on it's top hidden from view behind a wave of Praetorians and smaller Centurions.

When the wave of the faster Cylons was almost at the feet of the 90ton mech. The Lance would fall back and keep the 2.5m tall machines off of the company commander. The Mercury IIIs were able to do this with the pair of "hands", so that they did not have to "scratch" the armor with their smaller class weapons. Enough papercuts could still kill you. The Centurions had proven that time and time again. While the reinforced lance pulled back, the Captain activated and reactivated the "charging" arm to try to clear the jam in her Right Arm. So far, she had not been successful in getting half of her firepower back online.

It did not take long before the Mercury III's were out of machinegun ammunition, and then they had to fall back on their pair of second-generation medium pulse lasers. It had been found that the heavy MGs projectiles were the best way to take on and take out the massive numbers of smaller Cylons, and it was low heat. The Locust IIC's six arm mounted extended ranged small lasers did not run out of ammunition, but they could only take out one or two Centurions per hit. They did generate heat, and lots of it. Between that, and battle damage caused by the KEW's and the odd missiles to their thin armor. They were not putting out their maximum firepower after a short amount of close ranged combat. All the while, the group of five mechs was slowly falling back towards the grounded dropship. They were still loading people and animals as fast as they could, as the sounds of combat slowly got closer and closer.

All five mechs made it to the second line of defense. One of the Locusts was dragging one of its legs, like a person after a very bad snow skiing accident. One of the Mercury IIIs was missing an arm, after a Tinmen had been able to lock it up with its turret cannons. But they all made it to the next line of defense. The line was invisible, at least until you crossed it. This line had more people working on it, and they had longer to do the job. The time that the first line had bought them, was well spent.

Captain Robinson was the last one to cross the line, and she was only about five minutes in front of the remaining Cylons. She had just taken out the last of the Cylon tanks, only to see another dozen make the last turn into the valley. She was out of ammunition and almost out of armor plate, but she made it to the second line. The five machines took up a very visible, but effective defensible line behind the hidden line of defenders.

This line of defenders was heavier and with a lot more firepower. They would to be more than a speed bump for the Cylons. The lights were a pair of Mercury IIIs, then to one side was a 55ton Wolverine II or a real Wolverine IIC. It was not the underweight Conjurer that the clan used as a second line unit. Those 5 tons had been used to increase the survivability of the pilot. This machine was a replacement for a battle-damaged Wolverine III omni, there were never enough of the new omnis. The Wolverine IIC was an odd duck, which had been in production before the SLDF in Exile had left the rest of the Clans. In a few years it would be called Hellhound, by the militaries of the House Lords. All of those names fit the fast and tough machines.

The heavy hitter on this listed medium lance, was a modified Riflemen III omni, gone were her beagle probe and medium lasers. In their place were more heatsinks, so the assault mech could fire its laser weapons and autocannons longer, before heat became a problem. The smallest in mass of the combatants, but the largest in number had not been there when Captain Robinson had passed through the area. There were a dozen Colonials and SLDF army troops with SRM launchers and Mauser 960s. They were right on the front line and they had come off of the Fury class dropship. Not too far behind them, were four cargo trucks with mounted 12.5mm machine guns. They had brought the ground troops here, from a security detachment somewhere behind them.

The mission for the Colonials and SLDF army troopers, after they fired off their hard-hitting shoulder launched pair of short-range missiles. They were to help the pair of Mercury IIIs, to keep what was left of the Centurions off the other two mechs on the main line of defense. They could be like an ant swarm on an elephant. The trucks were there, for when it was time to pull back the slow-moving ground troopers of this line of defense. It was a well-known fact that you can't outrun Centurions on foot. This line of defense needed to remove any remaining heavy weapons from the Cylon part of the battle.

The Riflemen was still scanning the skies, but reports coming in from the dropships on the ground and the Styx over their heads made the scanning irrelevant. All of them had said that so far, all of the Cylon air support was busy fighting the SLDF navy out in deep space. That was okay with the Air Defense mech. They could use its giant shot gun cannons on ground targets even better than against skeet. It was just a matter of finding the right angle, to get the grazing fire just right. Or just the wrong angle, if that fire was coming your way.

When the Cylons showed up. They were again in one wave of death, but it was moving more slowly by now. The Cylons had learned already, that their larger Praetorians needed support from their smaller centurion and larger Tinmen. This played right into the hands of the second line of defense. The Wolverine IIC second generation large pulse laser, and the Riflemen's twin class 5 ultra LB-X and Clan Large pulse laser mounted in each arm far out ranged any weapon that the Cylons had left on the field today.

In English, this meant that the Cylons were in the kill box longer. Then they found out a new surprise that the humans had waiting for them. This was one of the few times, that all of the infantry could play their games. Land mines started to explode along the front of the attacking wave of Cylons. It did not slow the attacking Cylons down by even a half of a step. What it did do? It was to thin out the Centurions and human forms even more while they were out of range of even the SLDF weapons.

After the Cylons had entered to a distance, that they could fire their KEW's effectively. The battle changed again on them. Where the first line had been more static, in depth of the defense and one that Cylons had seen before. This lance used its speed to shatter the attacking Cylon machines. The battlemech broke into mixed pairs and jumped or raced across the battlefield. The larger machines were taking out the larger Cylons, and the light mechs were machine-gunning down the smaller Cylons in job lots. The first line of human defenders had taken a lot of missile hits, but the number of Cylons meant that they still had a lot more to have to endure.

While the SLDF was taking on the main body of attacking Cylons. Captain Robinson sent the damaged lance of light mechs farther back. They only took out one probing attack of Cylons on this second line. Only two sets of attackers could cover only so much terrain. She had a feeling, that she was going to need them down the road. Besides the light lance had taken enough damage, that they all were now moving a lot slower than they should.

She was about to close in on a mixed group of Cylons making another break for the defensive line around the edge of the heavier defending lance. She had forgotten about the ground pounders, but she would be glad that she had her battle recorders playing. A large group of human forms and Centurions supported by a few Praetorians and by a lone Tinman charged the line. And all looked good to them, that is until two dozen rockets came out of hiding on smoky trails.

Each of the ground personnel had picked one Pretorian and had used the laser designators to mark or claim their targets. Not all of the missiles hit, but the Colonials and the Army had spent a lot of time training with their weapons. They were not going to have a repeat, of under trained personnel dying to defend the fleet. Every one of the dozen or so 40ton machines was hit with at least one of the short-ranged rockets. The Tinman had taken hits from 3 of the 4 missiles launched at it. Recent history had shown that those few missiles should not have taken out something that large fighting for the Cylons.

The rockets that the ground pounders were using were not filled with explosives, but something a little bit "hotter". Just like the Raiders and Heavy Raiders, the Cylons had been using since the surprise attack. The walking tanks were known to have a good-sized biological section, as its controller. The liquid lead cooled fission reactor was hot, and it was not just radioactive hot. It was cooking an egg hot, not long after it was fired up. There were reports that said they would reach almost 500 degrees C only an hour after starting up. If that engine was hit the wrong way, and it was breached? Well, let's just say that this event was best seen from a distance and with a very well-made lead lined suit. The Tinman had an internal combustion engine, and every good Finn knows how to take something like that out on the battlefield.

A biologic life form can only "live" below a hard-sustained temperature number of 140 degrees Fahrenheit. They can live above that temperature for a limited amount of time, before it needs to find someplace to cool down after prolong exposure. After so long in combat or running their machines at or very near the maximum output of those machines for over two hours. The heat in those machines was already a little over 100 degrees F in the cockpit sections, and alot higher in other areas of the machines. That was why the Colonials had used inferno rockets instead of explosive ones. This was the first mass use of those warheads, and it was a test to see how they would work in a mass setting.

The white smoke rockets corkscrewed to impact on the 6m tall war-machines. Waves of flaming liquid covered the machines from each of the weapons strikes. It did not take long for the heat to be transferred, first to the delicate electronics near the flames. Then the heat started to be spread to even the more sensitive, biologic control center.

The Bio forms in the Cylons mechs were dog smart, just like the Raiders, and just like dogs. They did not understand why they were in pain. It was just that they were in pain, and it didn't know what to do to get the pain to stop. One by one and then two by twos. The Cylon mechs fell to the ground, some would thrash around, and others would not. This attack was supported by an upgraded Resurrection ship, so almost all of the Cylons would be saved that died in combat. That group of Cylons would carry the horror of being cooked to death, into their next lives and the ones that followed. In less than a year after this battle. They all would be boxed and replaced in other mechs or bodies, due to some "issues" with higher Cylon command.

The Tinman tank's bio from was better protected from fire, more by accident of a long dead human design team than any real plan. The three SRM's loaded with flame jell left three small flame lakes or pools of blue and orange fire. They spread around by gravity, and motion of the tank as it covered the ground looking for humans to kill. It looked like the flames were not going to stop this beast. Then on the back deck one of the flaming pools started to be pulled by the air rushing around it. Almost slowly the flames were pulled across the metal hull by an invisible hand.

At some magic point that was defined by high-level math, the flaming liquid jumped up off of the deck and was sucked into the engine compartment. As any mechanic will tell you, open flames of any kind are not good for an engine. Most engines can handle heat up to a few hundred degrees, but flames add a second design challenge. Computer controls, plastic ducts, and rubber lines started to melt. It didn't take long for a hydraulic line to start to spray a fine mist. Even Iron will burn if it is in a fine enough form. This type of hydraulic fluid did not need to be in that fine of a mist to react to the open flames. The whole back of the tank turned into a massive fireball. It would only take a few more seconds for those flames to reached something a lot more energetic than hydraulic fluid. Maybe it was a design flaw to have those two large missiles exposed on the outside of the tank ready to fire.

There was a massive thunderclap of an explosion that announced a massive red, orange, black and grey cloud. The 75ton tank was blown in to slightly used parts, only dropped once. That drop might have been from a few thousand feet in the air, but they only were dropped once. The energy of the Tinman coming apart was enough to take out the last two walking few Praetorians in that group of attacking Cylons.

The ground troops had not just been setting and watching, what their paired missiles had done to the enemy. As soon as the missiles had left the tubes, the launchers hit the dirt. Then up came the Mausers, and they started firing pulse laser blast into the still closing normal sized Cylons. It did not take long for those dozen men and women to use lasers blast and grenades to wipe out three times their number of Cylons. It would be they, who stopped this breakout attempt of the Cylon ground forces. They were the ones that stopped the Cylons advance for another two hours, the mechs just took out the larger and slower types of Cylons.

When the next attempt of the Cylons to break the line had been stopped, and after a long break of no shooting. The Colonials and other ground troopers had made a break for the nearby trucks. Captain Robinson thought they were pulling out. It was the logical move, and it was according to the orders that she had reviewed. After she had found out they had deployed to her area, she had made sure that they knew were the Fury class dropship was located.

That was not what she saw them do. Empty missile launchers went back into the cargo trucks, and out came more launchers along with what looked like battery packs from her point of view. Before she could contact them on the radio, to find out what they were doing. They had broken up into two-person hunter killer teams and were moving towards the Cylon's lines. They were not done with this battle, even if the Cylons wanted to take a little break.

Adie Hermes was one of the orphans in the fleet and was now eighteen, or he could pass for eighteen anyway. That was all that matter to him, that and a full stomach. He had killed his first person not long after the fleet had finished that special kind of hell, of jumping every 33 minutes to keep away from the Cylon fleet. It had been a predator, and it targeted the weakest among the human race. It would not be stocking the fleet anymore, and that was thanks to Adie. By the time the fleet had found New Circe. He had killed two more people and hurt a few more, which needed it for the betterment of the human race.

Now, no one messed with him. He could have led his own gang in the quickly growing city, but he did not want to prey on his fellow humans. He had a strong almost overwhelming desire to kill Cylons, and to kill lots of them. He had tried out to be a Viper pilot, just like everyone else had in the Fleet and City State. He had failed badly. He just did not have the school background, to compete for those few slots. And he did not have the natural skills, to get one of the few waivers that the Admiral made sure were available to all of those who had broken families but the right natural skills.

He had taken to any military training, like a fish to water. After he "finished" the minimal education requirements, he had joined the military full time. He had just been mad as frak, that they made him wait that long. He turned out to be great with heavy weapons, and he took to the new shoulder launched short ranged missile with glee. The City-State was copying the design of them off of a set of hardware, which had come back from the first supply run. He knew with pride, that he had hit his target, with both missiles. Now he and one of the Marines that had been on the Battlestar Pegasus, were teamed up to go forward in front of the SLDF Mechs. They knew that they were called hunter-killer teams, and the thought made Adie smile.

The older woman was packing one of the few SLDF pulse lasers the City State had access to. She would keep the Centurions off his back, while he hunted for bigger game. It was a good team, and they worked very well together, in all the training they had undertaken before coming to Nike's World. Now with a fresh set of launchers, he turned to her with a smile and threw her a thumbs up. In his mind he didn't know what he wanted to try for first. A Rhino or Praetorian, that was going to be hard to decide on what to "look" for.

They were moving off at a dog trot without a word being said between them. It was going to take them some time, to catch up to the slowly pulling back enemy. When they were close enough to a target. Adie would motion to his partner, to let her know that he had a target worth their time. When he was ready? He would put two inferno missiles as close as he could to the biologic control center or onto the shoulder mounted missile racks. He would just need to see what got him the best results.

On their third return to the truck for this team. They found that all of the missiles had been used and only the empty launchers were in the missile boxes. That did not stop Team Hermes in the hunt to kill more Cylons. He took a rack mounted Blazer rifle, and they went out again. That weapons choice was going to affect them hunting large Cylons, but they had three kills so far. The targeting the missile racks had been effective and very satisfying.

Captain Robinson reported back to the flag ship, that the Cylons were pulling back to their landing area. They had stopped the first attack, but she did not think that this would be the last attack on her second defensive line. She ordered the lance to pull back, to their now visible defensive line that the scout lance had used to draw the Cylons in. It was harder to pull the Colonials back to the main defensive line, than she could believe. They had a bone in their teeth, and they were not going to let it go as long as they could see Cylons.

At least most of them would come back, but not without a lot of yelling. The foot infantry made it about a mile deeper into the Cylon's lines, before they realized that they were without support from the mechs. Then they started to drift back to the SLDF lines. Now they were not happy, about being left out on their own. The mech company commander had simply told them next time? They needed to pay better attention to their comms, and then they would not end up flapping in the breeze in front of the enemy.

Now with the local area under control of the SLDF. She was able to think, and more importantly she could plan. She first pulled further back the Colonials, after telling them what a great job they had done. They were going back to the next line or third line of defense, that had been planned for. Next to pull back was the slowest mechs, hers and the Riflemen. When the heavy metal had reached the new line. The Wolverine IIC would start its move back. The last two machines to shift position, were the light machines. By then It was dark, and they pulled back without the Cylons knowing that it had happened. A few decoys were left behind, that made it look like a lance of mechs were still blocking the valley.

When the battle had started today. This last line of defense had only been held by three Riflemen IIIs omni set up for counter ground operations and the Scout Spector. The line was now thickened up and then spread out, as more and more units were added to the defensive line. Captain Robinson's whole command, except for the pair of Locust that were under repair in the Union, were on the line. Even the ground troops were in defensive points spread out with a fresh load of ammunition for their pulse lasers and SRM launchers. After a few hours of nothing going on. She stood half of her people down, so that some of them could get some sleep. It had been a long day, and she was thinking that tomorrow was going to be just as long. A set of techs flowed over her machine replacing damage armor and broken weapons, as soon as she settled into a position on this third line.

When the sun came up the next day over the local area, and a second attack did not come. Captain Robinson was ordered to send out her scouts. They needed to find out what was going on, it was not like the Cylons to delay in attacking known human location. It anything they kept attacking, until they ran out of lower units or all of the human forms had been killed.

She sent out the newly repaired Locusts, both of the pilots had the most sleep of anyone in her command. The Spector went looking a few hours later, and quickly reported a group of humans hiding in the nearby woods. No one knew if they were humans, or if they were some human form Cylons setting up some kind of trap or ambush. A ground team would have to be sent out to check on them later. The fast laser armed machines went out on three different bearings, but the end point was the same for all three machines. It was going to the field, which the Cylons had landed the converted colonial liners in.

The pair of Locusts had been gone for only a few hours on the second mission of the day, when they reported contact. The Cylons were hunting down humans. The little scout mech had run into one group, and they were being hunted by a mixed team of male human forms and metal Centurions with fire support. There were not that many people, that had planned on staying. And they were spread out over the whole planet in small groups. The single Locust had been able to take out the single praetorian, and a half dozen Centurions, but not before they had killed a homestead that four people had called home for who knew how many generations.

Before she could be ordered, to send all of her scouts out, she flushed everyone. She kept all of the heavier machines closer to the still loading dropships, in case this was a lure to leave the dropships and still loading cargo open to attack. The war now shifted from a large set piece battle, to a war of scouts and small units of Cylons. In one of the footnotes of the War of Nike's World. It was noted that even the Colonial born tech crew went looking for Cylons when they were off shift. The Ground Commander broke up Colonial and SDF ground units into four teams. Each team was centered around a truck, and out they went to do battle with the Cylons and try to save or recover as many of the locals as they could.

When she did report the news of the attack on locals, and that she had sent out her scouts to counter this. She was told that the last Colonial ship had launched with a "full" load during the night. During one of these lifts of the Colonial ships, one of the modified Cylon controlled liners launched into pursuit of the Colonial ship full of new refugees. That attacking landing ship had run right into the guns of the Modified Tramp Class ship named after a river, used by Hades. Tartarus was were the modified liner had ended up after that run in.

 **Notes**

 **Cylon tank, rhino, or Tinmen**. BAR 7 or 8, and around 75 tons with ICE powered. Turret mounted 6 x Heavy recoilless cannons on main turret, 1 x Twin ground based long barreled 25mm KEW on forward hull, and 2 ready to fire Gorgon long ranged Anti Air missiles. Armored as hard as a Scorpion tanks, 30kph cruising speed. 180mm RCL with 48 rounds. Each round massing about 60kg to fire a 28kg HE or HEAT warhead.

 **Why all of the unique mechs?** I got tired of waiting for TRO Golden Century.

 **Locust IIC.** I would have preferred to have a Piranha, but the Wolverines do not have the resources to invent it. It is still a few years away, even in Clan space.

 **Sling omni**. 25tons Clan XL 175, Clan grade Ferro-Fibrous armor, Clan Endo-Steel and 10 DHS. No fixed jump jets and the rest is open mass.

 **Rifleman III omni.** 80 tons Clan XL 320, Clan grade Ferro-Fibrous armor, Clan Endo-Steel and 10 DHS. No fixed jump jets and the rest is open mass.

 **Wolverine III omni.** 55tons Clan XL 275, Clan grade Ferro-Fibrous armor, Clan Endo-Steel and 10 DHS. No fixed jump jets and the rest is open mass.

 **SLDF BN (reinforced):** 2 Unions, 1 Lion, 1 Confederate, and 1 Fury class dropship. 36 battlemechs, 12 light vehicles, 4 inf platoons made up of a mix of Colonials and Clan Wolverine personnel. (random rolled on Dropships SLDF)

 **Prototype 2** **nd** **gen LBX Ultra 5**. It takes the HOD but adds revolver tech, like you would find in the US M39 or GIAT 30 to boost the rate of fire. It's a RAC without the added long barrels. But it will jam more at the higher rates of fire.

 **The Spector:** It is based off of a SPR-4F, only with clan tech weapons. It is a first line mech and would get first crack at any updated weapons. They did not want to risk all of those stealth systems, so the old armor would stay the same.

 **The makeup of the lances.** First lance was randomly rolled with 4 light mechs. The second one also randomly rolled with 1 Assault, 1 Medium, and 2 Lights. The last lance is an assault Lance with 4 Assault weight mechs.

 **Nike as I see her:** This was done by someone else and it was posted to the original AU.

Model/Name: M5 Caspar Drone (Wolverine) SLS Nike

Tech: Clan / 3025

Vessel Type: WarShip

Rules: Level 3, Standard design

Rules Set: AeroTech2

Mass: 782.000 tons

K-F Drive System: (Unknown)

Length: 653 meters

Sail Diameter: 1.127 meters

Power Plant: Standard

Safe Thrust: 4

Maximum Thrust: 6

Armor Type: Lamellor Ferro-carbide

Armament:

20 NL55

20 AR10 Launcher

2 Killer Whale

2 White Shark

32 LBX Ultra AC/5*

32 LR PPC*

32 Medium Pulse Laser

32 Laser AMS

8 Barracuda

40 LRM 20+ArtIV

8 NL45

Class/Model/Name: M5 Caspar Drone (Wolverine) SLS Nike

Mass: 782.000 tons

Equipment: Mass

Power Plant, Drive & Control: 187.680,00

Thrust: Safe Thrust: 4

Maximum Thrust: 6

Kearny-Fuchida Hyperdrive: Compact (Integrity = 16) 353.855,00

Lithium Fusion Battery 7.820,00

Jump Sail: (Integrity = 4) 69,00

Structural Integrity: 70 54.740,00

Total Heat Sinks: 2.200 Double 1.543,00

Fuel & Fuel Pumps: 10.200,00

Bridge, Controls, Radar, Computer & Attitude Thrusters: 1.955,00

Fire Control Computers: 2.418,00

Food & Water: (271 days supply) 193,50

Hyperpulse Generator: 50,00

Armor Type: Lamellor Ferro-carbide (1.246 total armor pts) 1.094,50

Capital Scale Armor Pts

Location: L / R

Fore: 232

Fore-Left/Right: 207/207

Aft-Left/Right: 207/207

Aft: 186

Cargo:

Bay 1: Fighters (12) with 4 doors 1.800,00

Fighters (12) with 4 doors 1.800,00

Bay 2: Small Craft (4) with 2 doors 800,00

Cargo (1) 4.316,00

Bay 3: Distributed Dataprocessor Core (1) 50,00

Distributed Dataprocessor Core (1) 50,00

Bay 4: Distributed Dataprocessor Core (1) 50,00

Distributed Dataprocessor Core (1) 50,00

Bay 5: Advanced WarShip ECM Suite (1) 5.000,00

Bay 6: Nuclear Weapons Locker (1) with 1 door 4.000,00

DropShip Capacity: 2 Docking Hardpoints 2.000,00

Life Boats: 12 (7 tons each) 84,00

Escape Pods: 12 (7 tons each) 84,00

Crew and Passengers:

5 Officers (51 minimum) 50,00

20 Crew (196 minimum) 140,00

50 Marine Battle Armor Troopers/Elementals 350,00

68 Bay Personnel ,00

Weapons and Equipment Loc SRV MRV LRV ERV Heat Mass

4 NL55 Nose 22 22 22 22 340 4.400,00

4 AR10 (10 KW, 10 WS, 20 B)Nose * * * * 80 2.500,00

2 Killer Whale(20 msls) Nose 14 14 14 14 40 1.300,00

2 White Shark(20 msls) 30 1.040,00

4 LBX Ultra AC/5*(400 roundNose 3(28) 3(28) 3(28) - 4 52,00

4 LBX Ultra AC/5*(400 roundNose 3(28) 3(28) 3(28) - 4 52,00

4 LR PPC* Nose 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 72 24,00

4 LR PPC* Nose 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 72 24,00

4 Medium Pulse Laser Nose 3(28) 3(28) - - 16 8,00

4 Medium Pulse Laser Nose 3(28) 3(28) - - 16 8,00

4 Laser AMS Nose - - - - 48 6,00

4 Laser AMS Nose - - - - 48 6,00

3 NL55 FL/R 17 17 17 17 510 6.600,00

2 Barracuda(20 msls) FL/ 40 1.560,00

4 AR10 (20 KW, 20 WS, 30 B)FL/R * * * * 160 7.400,00

10 LRM 20+ArtIV(1002 roundsFL/R 16(160)16(160)16(160) - 120 454,00

4 NL45 L/RBS 18 18 18 18 560 7.200,00

4 LBX Ultra AC/5*(400 roundL/RBS 3(28) 3(28) 3(28) - 8 104,00

4 LBX Ultra AC/5*(400 roundL/RBS 3(28) 3(28) 3(28) - 8 104,00

4 LR PPC* L/RBS 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 144 48,00

4 LR PPC* L/RBS 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 144 48,00

4 Medium Pulse Laser L/RBS 3(28) 3(28) - - 32 16,00

4 Medium Pulse Laser L/RBS 3(28) 3(28) - - 32 16,00

4 Laser AMS L/RBS - - - - 96 12,00

4 Laser AMS L/RBS - - - - 96 12,00

3 NL55 AL/R 17 17 17 17 510 6.600,00

2 Barracuda(20 msls) AL/ 40 1.560,00

4 AR10 (20 KW, 20 WS, 30 B)AL/R * * * * 160 7.400,00

10 LRM 20+ArtIV(1002 roundsAL/R 16(160)16(160)16(160) - 120 454,00

4 NL55 Aft 22 22 22 22 340 4.400,00

4 LBX Ultra AC/5*(400 roundAft 3(28) 3(28) 3(28) - 4 52,00

4 LBX Ultra AC/5*(400 roundAft 3(28) 3(28) 3(28) - 4 52,00

4 LR PPC* Aft 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 72 24,00

4 LR PPC* Aft 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 7(68) 72 24,00

4 Medium Pulse Laser Aft 3(28) 3(28) - - 16 8,00

4 Medium Pulse Laser Aft 3(28) 3(28) - - 16 8,00

4 Laser AMS Aft - - - - 48 6,00

4 Laser AMS Aft - - - - 48 6,00

1 Lot Spare Parts (1,00%) 7.820,00

1 Colonial FTL drive 78.200,00

1 Colonial Grav Plating 150,00

TOTALS: Heat: 4.170 782.000,00

Tons Left: ,00

Calculated Factors:

Total Cost: C-Bills

Battle Value: 135.177

Cost per BV: 88.210,2

Weapon Value: 91.955 (Ratio = ,68)

Damage Factors: SRV = 4.021; MRV = 3.582; LRV = 2.276; ERV = 783

Maintenance: Maintenance Point Value (MPV) = 439.188

(63.122 Structure, 230.216 Life Support, 145.850 Weapons)

Support Points (SP) = 30.385 (7% of MPV)


	41. Chapter 41 15 Feb 3049

**Chapter 41**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **15 Feb 3049**

 **Nike's World Back in Space**

Robert has had very little sleep for the last few days. By luck? His ship had been on the other side of the planet, when the Cylons had micro-jumped into the very high atmosphere/low orbit of the planet he was orbiting around. Robert had not been able to do anything, as the Cylons maybe landing ships popped into existence. What he could do, was use his two small craft. They had been able to keep an eye on the enemy landing zone from the safety of high orbit. They did lower overflights every few hours, and the data was pumped to the flagship of this operation. The Zug and the Caspar were hunting down the Cylon Basestars or groups of Cylon small craft that tried to interfere with the evacuation. It was not going as well as Captain Ferry had hoped. This new class of Basestar was a whole new type of warfare. So far, the Caspar was doing better than the larger McKenna about scoring hits on the beast. Still none of those hits had been a knockout blow.

Robert felt helpless and he knew his crew did also. When the massive number of ground base Cylons started to move, his reports reached the Flagship before the ground-based commanders had. It was not as detailed as the ground force, but it was there first. This just meant that he had longer to stew on not being able to do anything about it. If he had the Hobgoblin? He could have launched a few airstrikes against the masses of Cylons moving across the open fields. If he had trained attack crews, for his 2 small craft? He would have sent them down to see what trouble they could cause. Instead all he could do was sit in orbit and wait for the dropships to launch.

All day he had watched and into the night, but he still could do nothing. He was missing more and more not having the Hobgoblin around, to use its fighters to launch a few attacks. The one bit of good news was that the next grounded Colonial ships had started to report that they were nearing to be full. It was not long after these reports came in, that those same ships were lifting off the planet.

The Colonial ships had by in large not been able to pull everyone from their home worlds, when the Cylons had launched the surprise attack. Without talking to any of the other ship's skippers, to see what they wanted to do. They had decided, on their own. That they were not going to lift off this planet unless they were taking fire or were filled to capacity at the red line level of their life support equipment. So far, the only areas threaten by the Cylons were the ones defended by the SLDF ground forces with the three large dropships. By midnight on the Styx's ships clock. The last interstellar Colonial ship had lifted off the planet. It was the last ship that launched, that things had changed on the ground.

One of the Cylon liner/landing ships had lifted off in pursuit of the fleeing Colonial crewed ship filled with the families of the locals. The nice thing about being in high orbit? It was, that it was hard for anyone at the bottom of the gravity well to surprise you.

Robert had no idea that he was sleeping, until the Radar operator sounded off and he almost jumped out of his seat. "Radar contact, a lift off from the Cylon landing zone."

Before Robert could ask a question, or for his brain to fully come online, more information comes into his command center. "Sir! We have an Olympic Carrier class ship lifting. It looks like she is trying to close in on the Astral Queen. She just lifted off with a full load of civilians and local cargo!"

Now Robert's mind was going at full speed. He was a combat trained SLDF Naval officer after all. He just played a Merchant convoy commander for the Inner Sphere. "Put it on the plotter! And get the Landing Boats ready!" He might not have a heavy fighter squadron, but that did not mean that he didn't have some teeth in a purely space environment.

Robert rose and walked to the main plotting table, as the information was plotted. His eyebrows went up and he did some heavy math in his head. Then he reran the numbers on the computer near that station, and they came up almost exactly the same. He picked up the phone and contacted the fleeing Colonial ship. It took about five minutes, but he convinces the other ship's master to follow along with his rudimentary idea. It was not even a real plan, but it was the best shot he had to do two jobs at once. And you never know, it might just work.

The ex-prison ship shifted its course by just a few degrees when the radio meeting was over. It was so small of a course change. That it was not very likely, that the human forms at the controls of the converted liner knew why the course had been adjusted. Or it could have been that they did notice the change, but they felt that it was not something to worry about. The Queen went to full power on her plasma engines and she went "under" the SLDF vessel, and then it jumped away from this star system. It could have jumped out well before this point in space. What did this delay accomplish? It was that this left the Tramp class dead in front of the on rushing Cylon piloted vessel.

With the ship load of civilians gone and out of the line of fire of the Cylons, Robert was ready to act. From behind the long ship, two Mark VIIs landing boats flew out of the shadow of the jumpship. These Mark VII landing boats were not the same vessels, which the Styx had carried closer to Earth. These craft were newer, and they were built to a full clan standard of weapons technology. They might mass 150 tons and carry 31 tons of cargo in its protective hull. But they each had the weapons load out, that was better than most medium class fighters the House units had access to even to that day.

The pair of craft came burning out from behind the Styx. The jumpship fired off its nearest facing second generation extended range large lasers at the enemy vessel. The fire control systems on the modified jumpship, was able to target the on rushing converted passenger liner with ease. Just as fast as the computer had the information. The weapons fired and they were able to strike the liner at long range for these types of weapons. The Styx was just lucky that the Cylon ship was not packing Capital scale Cylon missiles. That would have cut down on the amount of forces the converted liners could carry to the surface.

This was when the battle computers on the Styx and Battleship found out some more information about the Cylon manned liners. The Liners had not only been converted to carry a mixed Cylon landing force, but they also had put some additional armor on the outer hull of the liners. They had also added four box missile launchers. They might have been taken from old Raiders, which had been lost or otherwise not in service. When the Styx fired on the approaching ship. It had quickly returned fire on the odd-looking ship off of the Cylon's bow. The missiles were only the same size as what the Raiders could carry, but Cylons made very good missiles.

Deep in space. The Number Two at the controls fired his entire load of missiles, at the craft that had blocked him from reaching his prey. Clouds of particles were left behind the missiles, as each missile decided how best to kill their assigned target. There were limited choices and soon the missiles "clumped" together, and this was okay by them. At least as far as the weapons systems of the Styx were concerned.

While the missiles were still closing on the human ship. The Styx was able to hit the Cylon controlled vessel, with three more raking attacks by the clan tech lasers. Now after about a dozen hard hits from those laser weapons. The Cylon modified ship was starting to vent atmosphere, and other loose items from within her hull. One laser strike had hit something flammable, and it looked like a massive fire was burning in the 800foot long vessel. Now it was the turn of the two attacking small craft, to see what they could do to the Cylon vessel with their weapons. They had been in a loop, building up all of the speed that the fusion engine could turn out. This built up speed made them faster than any Cylon missiles known to exist.

The twin craft had to get very close to the converted liner, so that the second-generation medium pulse lasers could hit with enough force to do "real" damage on the vessel. This also had brought them into range of a dozen 30mm KEW's on the modified liners. The soft and slow rounds didn't do that much damage to the heavily armored SLDF small craft.

It only took one pass, before the liner was dead in space as a spaceship. It was soon in small pieces, after the laser fire had set off the ship's thinly armored covered fuel tanks. This area of the liner had been up armed as well. But it would seem, that the Cylons had not learned that much about the power of human made DEWs. Now all that the two craft had to do, was see if their ride out of this system was still there for them.

The dozens of Cylon missiles came slashing into the old jumpship at high speed. They had not been affected by any of the SLDF ship mounted jamming systems. But to contact the hull and do any real damage? They had to pass one last bit of a hurdle, which the old SLDF made sure this ship had been equipped with. That was in the form of a half dozen old style ammunition fed anti missiles systems. When the self-contained radar on those systems told them to fire? They did, and streams of hard metal bullets flew away from the armed ships in short streams of heat and light. It only took one bullet from all of those bullets in a stream to take out even a Cylon missile.

The missiles were flying very close together, and when one missile was hit by a hard projectile? Its fuel and warhead would detonate as only Colonial and Cylon missiles could. This would take out any missiles around it. This depleted some of the firepower of the attack, but it did not stop them all. Eight missiles struck the long vessel, in a rippling attack. Robert had been lucky that among the missiles that were taken out, were the two nuclear tipped weapons launched at it. They had been hidden in the missile wave attack, hoping that they would survive any counter fire. Luck was on the human's side, this time.

Robert and his bridge crew were strapped into their chairs, with the helmets down and locked on their spacesuits. They had been watching the wave of missiles closing, and it didn't take much brain power to know. That it was going to be hard to stop all of those incoming messengers of death. When the numbers started falling as the AMS did their jobs, the crew breathed a little easier. Just when the missiles reached their target. They were hit and hit again, and each one shook the people inside the metal can of a ship.

Warning lights brightened up all over the place around the bridge, as the hull was cracked. If this ship had been a Star Lord or other "normal" civilian jumpship, she would have been in trouble. The Styx outer hull held; unlike the liner they had targeted. The Styx, when she had been first built. They had foreseen the possibility that ships of her class might be fired on. These little things were what protected the ship, from the pinpricks of damage all along her length.

Robert was looking around the different readouts, when the shaking stopped. "Contact Flag and let them know about the modifications on those tubs. Also tell Captain Ferry, that we will pass along an updated damage report in an hour. Right now? It looks like we are good to go, when the dropships are ready to blow this fruit stand." Robert had given his orders and now he only needed to wait to see what was going to happen.

Robert was reading a report, when he overheard one of the bridge crew asking a question. "So when was the last time, a civilian jumpship was able to sink another jumpship?"

Robert's head snapped up and looked around the bridge. It didn't take but a second of looking around to figure out who might have spoken. The red face, neck, and ears was a good giveaway. "That is a good question. And as far as I can remember, right now. It was during the run from clan space. Don't count on getting a line in the Remembrance, for just doing a good job." He let his voice get lighter, to take the sting out of his words. 99.9999 percent of his people would do anything to be granted a line in the oral and written history of their people.

For three more days, this system was a battleground that stretched from the ort cloud too deep into the planet's forest. More people were pulled off the planet, than had been in what the first plan had called for. Being invaded by thinking machines? Ones that wanted to wipe out all your family and friends, has a way of doing that. Also, people running for their lives tended to have less baggage and want to board ships a lot faster than normal. They also stopped hiding their real population numbers from the SLiE

No one that wanted off this planet and made it to a human ship, was left behind. It had not been a bloodless campaign for the humans. The SLDF ground forces losses were right at forty percent, in personnel and machines. Every wrecked body and mech was recovered from the planet before the last ships lifted off the planet. The light mech forces had been almost wiped out, with only one Mercury III still functioning under its own power propelled on two more or less functional legs. Not one of the mech or light vehicles in the four companies would be truly listed as combat ready. Many were reported as only being good for parts donors, and they would need to be sent back to the main depot for complete rebuilding.

The light and medium weight machines had been operating alone over a broad arc, and they had been swamped in a sudden wave of Cylons. One Locust and one Mercury III had their anti Cylon device fired, before help could arrive for the pilots. There was nothing to be recovered from those two mechs, but information. That information? It was that the anti Cylon capture device worked…very well against the pair of nearby praetorians. There were also losses for the conventional ground forces in the form of infantry, 4 light tanks, and two hover trucks with their crews. All of the bodies were recovered, but it still hurt the small units the Fury had dropped.

The space battle had also taken its toll on the SLDF aerofighters. But they had taken out a huge number of Cylons, before they had died or were rendered combat ineffective. Almost all of the craft had been recovered, but not all. The SLDF was bleeding equipment, highly trained and irreplaceable personnel at a steady rate. All to recover a few hundred thousand Victorian era steam powered personnel and ranch animals. And every member of the mission was proud of what they had been able to accomplish. This was an expensive mission so far, but maybe it was about to change.

After the first Cylon converted liner had tried to take off. A few bombing runs had been made by two pairs of jump fighters on the landing zone. The Cylon liners were not going anywhere, for now. The downside was that it was notice that the Cylons did not seem to mind about the loss of these craft. The only functional Cylon ships that were still in system, were the now much damaged Basestars that were left operational at the edge of the system. They were staying well away from the Nike and the Zug. Colonel Gao and Captain Ferry had worked out that they were waiting on something, and they had pulled all of their ships back in very close to the planet to support the evacuation.

The Two Mammoths and all but one of the Unions had left the planet by the third day. Now the Bovine was not just carrying livestock. Now she also carried a mix of humans with the four-legged animals she had been modified to carry. The remaining Union was using the open space of the emptied mech bays and depleted repair parts storage areas, to carry anything that could be packed into them safely. The Colonel and her senior staff could read the numbers, and they were not likeing that they were going to have to leave all of this good salvage behind. But it was a question of people or salvage. All of the data and updated briefings had been sent back to higher command via the HPG built into both of the large warships. The Colonel and her staff had worked out that getting all of the unarmed people out of the Cylons way was the most important. This plan had won out, hands down when High Command replied. Metal was something they could get lots of places.

The little fleet of three SLDF ship's crews had a collective heart attack, when the modified sensors on the Zug detected an incoming jump. The little SLDF fleet only had 60 seconds warning, but it was enough to at least get the weapons ready to fire, and to have the fighter crews running toward their craft. With luck it was not a Cylon fleet jumping into high orbit around the planet, but two more SLDF ships. The two ships were the most massive warships that the SLDF Navy had left to field.

The Bis and the Beast were the two ships nicknames. The Beast had been working on the reputation that Cain had ruined, but she still had an uphill battle. The Beast had come along way under Captain Adama. Taking a few nuclear hits on the nose of your ship tends to do that, or it was radiation sickness from the radiation enhanced weapons used against the rest of the human race. The Pegasus had taken those hits to protect one of the shiploads of civilians that had volunteered to leave the planet before this last effort.

Colonel Gao had been keeping SLDF Command informed about what had been going on with the built-in HPG on the massive ship. She had no idea what was being done with the information, but now it would seem that it had not fallen on deaf ears. Before the two warships contacted the local Flagship, six of the eight dropships that were carried on the great battleship Bismarck and Pegasus started burning towards the planet.

Gibson was looking at the read outs and he could not work out what was going on. Out of the corner of his right eye, he could see that Nike was looking at him. She was tapping the toe of her left shoe at a steady rate. It was a sure sign that she knew something, but she was waiting to be asked what she knew. That meant that it was not life or death information, but it could be important. Alan let out a breath and shakes his head.

"Okay Nike, give. What are they up to, I have no clue?" Gibson even threw his hands up into the air to show his frustration.

The Avatar gave a sly grin, the waiting had been killing her. Now it was an okay time to make her Captain work for it. "I should make you beg."

Alan let his voice go hard. "Bondswoman!"

The female with black eyes smiled and she tried to look apologetic, and utterly failed. "Okay, the six dropships are burning towards the Cylon landing field. The dropships are mostly cargo ships, but the upgraded Triumph can carry a mix of mech and vehicles. I think that they are carrying heavy salvage equipment. If they can pull even one of the jump drives out of the liners? This mission would be gang busters successful. Currently, there are not any major groups of Cylons within 400kms of the wrecked Cylon landing ships."

She stopped talking, looked down for a second and then looked back up at her Captain. "We are being sent a message from flag."

Even with Nikes computers. It took a few seconds to run the complicated decoding software, and to put the message through its paces. "We are being ordered to cover the operations on the planet below." The tone she used let Alan know, that she was not really happy with those orders.

Alan's eyes flew to the damage diagram on one screen. There were not any red zones, but they were more than a few amber ones spread out on the ship's armor schematics. "Did they say how long they were planning on taking for this operation? query affirmative? It's not like we have been in a running battle for almost a week already, are anything like that."

Now Nike could have used this opening to pull his chain, but she quickly decides it was too much of a risk. She just lets it slide. "No data. It's a "until mission complete" or until the Flag calls it." She stopped talking and raised her eyebrows.

Gibson could tell that Nike was holding something back. "Okay, Nike. Use that second core of yours and run the numbers. When was the last time you had some down time? You seem crankier than normal."

Now Nike raised an eyebrow. "I am counting the transports as one of the upgraded Triumphs. It's one of the ones that the Galactica took on her first run back home. The other dropship the Beast carried is and older style Triumph, she does not have a name but a hull number. The Bismarck dropped off the mule class called the Lisbon Maru and a second Mule that is also just using a number. By the way Alan. Who names a cargo ship after a floating war crime, like a Hell ship?"

Alan had no idea what she was talking about. "Nike…What is a hell ship? Never mind. What else are you tracking?"

Nike was about to go off track, but she came back online. "They have that cargo modified Union White Rabbit 2, and a Mammoth class that wants to be called Hercules. It kind of seems, like they jumped out here with whatever they could scrape together. The only ships that are "normal" are the Olympia and Zeus. They are the only real combat ships among the dropships."

Gibson nodded, and he was trying to run the numbers for all of the ships that the AI had identified. "They probably grabbed every large off-road cargo transport they could get, along with any loader mech within a few hundred miles of any drop port on the planet. They must have jumped every hour, to make it out this far so fast. What do you think they are going to do?"

Nike waited for a second. She knew that when you replied to quickly, it made the biologics nervous. "Each of those Colonial liners comes in about 20,000 tons fully loaded and fueled. If they have a few dozen Colonials with them? They could rip the engines out of all five liners they have left on the ground, and just cut up the rest around the lift points. The Mammoth could carry two hulls, just by itself. After that? It will just be a matter of how fast they can pick up the different battle zones and not glow in the dark. There is a lot of metal in those Praetorians, it might be a little hot. But the Tinmen, Centurions, and the weapons from the human forms won't be an issue."

It took SLS Nike almost half an hour to get moved out of low orbit using her massive nuclear fueled engines. She was keeping an eye on what was going on the planet below. After a few hours of watching. It was threw intercepted messages between the dropships and the massive battleship in orbit that they found out what was going on. Nike smiled at her commander. It looked like she was right… again. She made a note to remind her captain about it later.

Down on the ground of Nike's World. Out of the dropships poured out wheeled, tracked, and walking machines of various types. They were followed by groups of humans and three human form Cylons. Those three were the ones in charge of this part of the operation. It was in a bid to avoid what had happened on that first attempt to salvage jump drives ripped out of Heavy Raiders. This group knew how best to take what was needed in working order, and about how to do it. The last part was very important, they had a "loss" rate of over 80 percent on the field recovered jump drives on first testing after recovery. Only about a quarter could be repaired after they were recovered from those Heavy Raiders.

By the time Nike could not "see" what was going on. The first liner was being cut into with laser cutters attached to work mechs, and the first cargo trucks were at the nearest battle site collecting and filling removable cargo containers. In less than six hours. Four jump engines that looked repairable, were pulled and packed into a special container brought just for them. One drive was deemed good for spare parts, and it was also pulled out of the converted liner's hull. Those four good engines were split up after leaving the landing field. They were loaded on the Union, each of the Mules and the Mammoth. The Mammoth would also carry the parts donor engine. Every shipping container that could be emptied on short notice in the New Circe system, had been collected and loaded onto the cargo dropships before coming out here. Now those containers were quickly filling up with Centurions, Tinmen, Praetorian parts, and anything else that looked worth the mass and was metal.

At the dozen hour mark, things again changed with jump signatures coming into this system. This time it was not Colonial or SLDF ships, but Cylon reinforcements. Ten normal Basestars and three more heavily modified Basestars, now called Dreadstars joined the damaged modified Cylon ship. The Cylons had sprung their trap. Now all they had to do was kill what the trap had caught. It was like the dog who caught the car.

The Cylons were still working out how to use their "new" systems effectively. Too few had been able to "share" most of the knowledge on this subject. They were learning, but right now they still were thinking that a "new" toy would fix everything. The only thing the Cylons knew, was that two more human ships had arrived in system. The Cylon spy ship had been too far out from their arrival point, to get a good reading of what was going on. They would get better information, as the now reinforced Cylon fleet advanced.

The SLDF had centuries of space combat experience under their belt, and they knew some tricks that the Cylons and Colonials never had thought about. One of those was called "Deception mode ECM". The SLDF had been working now, for years, with a lot of help from the Colonial navy. They both had been able to modify their existing tactic techniques and procedures, on how to fight a larger Cylon battle fleet. It had started as ideas on how to fight the combined Clan fleet, so they did not have to start from scratch with the plans or training.

If the Cylons did pick up any information about the two new ships? They would look like a pair of Colonial ships. They also would look like they were smaller than a Valkyrie class Battlestar. It was hoped that the two smaller ships would look just like the beginning of a new ship construction program the humans were working on. This was something that would have to be done, before the Colonials could put a full sized Battlestar in production.

The head of this part of the Cylon fleet was a Cylon human form known as a Number Two. The Number One's had come up with the idea to make this generation of Basestar, but it had been the number Two's that had been able to get the required production facilities up and running this quickly. That did not mean that they had that much experience in commanding a space fleet, much less a space fleet in combat. The Number Two had an easier time taking control of the remaining fleet, than he had expected. That was thanks to John's powerful Dreadstar taking a hit, which sent him all the way back to the Hub to get a new body along with the rest of the Command staff of that ship.

This Number Two thought he understands how to use a big hammer. He made sure that he had all of his ships together in one fist from around the system, now that the reports had come in that Daemon had been found again. He had wanted to wait longer before closing this trap, but he had a feeling that the Earth and Colonials ships were going to leave this system. If he waited for another day, before launching his attack? He would have another five Basestars and one more new generation Dreadstar. All of them also would be full of Heavy Raiders.

The first thing, after getting all his ships on hand and into the system in conflict. He formed his big hammer. He first launched all of his small craft at the damaged and war weary human fleet. They were to put a lethal, but ablative buffer, out around his capital ships. With the first part to his plan now done. Now he started moving his capital ships towards the only planet that could support life. This was done in two steps. First the second generation Basestars would move forward, with the Heavy Raiders acting as a screen. Then the older generation Basestars would micro jump to the other ships. It was a game of leapfrog, only with capital warships.

This was going to use a lot of fuel, but it was worth the risk to kill the Daemon and to finally capture a few examples of new technology the humans had been using against the Cylons. The civilian power plant had been a huge help in opening the door of fusion power energy supplies. Still it was understood that they needed a military grade plant, to start leveling the battlefield. Then again, if he could only take out the ship called Daemon. That would be worth losing every ship in his expanded fleet. The old prison power plant was being copied in some of the larger ground Cylon bases stretching back to old Cylon and Colonials space. It was looked at as a steppingstone of knowledge, and a way to cut down on the fuel supply line issues.

Captain Ferry was looking at all of the information coming into his McKenna Class ship's CIC. They knew already that these new class of Basestars were missile boats with thick skins. But they also packed a few dozen heavy cannons. On top of that? It was fast, for its size. Ferry was looking at all the data, to include what was the current situation on the surface of the planet. He had just ordered the Styx and its three dropships to leave the system, as soon as they could. He had been surprised when he had read the report that the merchant ship had burned down a Cylon crewed ship. Still he knew that there was a big difference between a modified passenger liner and a Cylon Basestar.

That would be in less than two hours, before the Tramp would be leaving. His dropship commanders wanted more time to load out everything they could. That was as of the last briefing, they were just over the halfway point in the amount of useable cargo space left open on the newly arrived dropships. His eyes shot open as he was multi-tasking. That was the key, and his hand struck out snake quick. He hit the replay, and then the fast forward on the data display of the movements of the Cylon fleet. The Cylon commander had fallen into a pattern, and it was a pattern Captain Ferry could leverage against them.

Captain Ferry gave an evil grin, as a modified battle plan popped into his head. He needed to either wipe out the Cylons quickly? Or he needed to drag out the battle for about six more hours. The problem was that he needs to make sure the Cylons did not just decide to jump into high orbit, and rain down hell on the planet. He was going to play a card he did not want to, but the Cylons seemed to be very interested in one ship under his expanded command. He had noticed that the whole Cylon fleet was moving more towards one line of travel. Now he needed to "block" that line. It was not something that was easily done in three-dimensional space. That is unless you had the right bait.

Ferry looked around the CIC and waved for his staff to come over to his location, and again was thankful for the gravity plating. It had been retrofitted onto his command, the Flagship of the whole SLDF navy, sometime ago.

"This is what we are going to do. I want to keep them in system, for as long as we can. First, we will be moving out in two by two cover formation. Leading our group will be the Bismarck and the Caspar. They are about equal in firepower, and the Cylons have a good idea of how hard they have been hit. The Pegasus and the Zug will be tail end Charles. Query Affirmative." When no one spoke up he continued as the plan fully coalesced into his brain.

"We will be moving out at 2gs of acceleration, when we break orbit. Now when the screen and Basestars reach this point in space?" He was pointing at an empty spot on the holo projection. "We all will jump, the Bismarck and Nike will exit here, and take on the Basestars. They are to delay them from jumping to support the rest of the screen and the new style Basestars. The Pegasus and Zug will jump in here and take on these Dreadstars. Our fighters are to keep the little fish off our hides, while we take the larger ships out."

Admiral Franks nodded; he had taken a shuttle over from the Bismarck after jumping into this system. He might be the head of the Navy, but Captain Ferry was the warship commander. Now he felt it was right to step in and back up the captain with some public support. "Yes, they are. And now, we will see how they will react with a full broadside of Heavy Naval PPC's. I think we will jump in between each of the ships, fire one or two full volleys. Then all ships are to jump all the way to the old style jump point. We can dump the heat while the Cylons work out what happened, and where we went."

That was the end of the meeting. The right hand of god had given his directions, and it would be so. A more detailed plan was worked up, but the base idea was the same. It was just that some of the numbers were a little more refined. Nike was not that happy with the plan, when it had been transmitted to her. After all? She would be outnumbered five to one by the Cylon capital ships. She did not bring up any issues to the two senior SliE naval leaders. That was not her mission. Gibson approved of the changes that the Nike would be making to her part of the plan. To many times in the past, they had been pulled out of the battle or used "in a supporting role".

When the Cylon "fighter" screen and its Basestar support reached a point in space, and it was about four minutes from when the rest of the Cylon fleet would jump in and join the screen. The humans joined battle against the Cylons. The two newly arrived battle wagons jumped to within 100 kilometers of the upgraded Cylon base ships and screening Heavy Raiders. At this range it did not take but a heartbeat to target and fire the ship's massive weapons. The humans were taking a page from the Cylon play book in the early stages of the war. The Heavy Naval PPCs fired from both sides of the ships into targets off her port and starboard. The Battlestar Pegasus did the same, but her nose mounted heavy cannons and a few of the attached Star League lasers were fired at a third Basestar. The Pegasus broadside weapons generated a lot more heat than the old but heavy coil guns, and she could then use the powerful nose weapons without risking overheating.

The humans might have had the element of surprise with the two battleships, but the Cylons were very quick off the mark to reduce the surprise. By the time the second volley of weapons fire was coming off the human ships. A huge tidal wave of missiles was starting to come at them from the Cylon ships. The anti-missile systems on the two warships went into overdrive trying to take on the wave of high-speed guided metal. As soon as the jump drive built into the two human ships was ready? They were ripped out of local space and put somewhere else. Just has planned, all without anyone needing to push a button.

Admiral Franks and Captain Ferry were looking at each other, but they could not say a word as they fought to keep their food down. Two jumps within 60 seconds? That was not good for the ships, drives, or the people carried on them. It was a lot better than death, but some would argue that it was as close as you could get without meeting Saint Peter. It took a solid three minutes, to get to feeling "normal" after the last jump. They did not have three minutes to waste.

"What is the status of our ships, and how did we do?" Admiral Franks was able to croak this out, but he was now thinking that he needed to find someone else to do missions like this. There were just somethings, that should be left for the younger generations.

Ferry was looking at the data on half a dozen screens spread out around him. They were replays of the last action going about half speed, but some of them were going a lot faster. "We took out the cripple and had solid hits on the other three Dreadstars. Those six NL45's were a nice addition to the Colonial's firepower. Pegasus got two solid hits from her nose weapons on her target."

As a long stream of sweat rolled down Captain Ferry's face, and he wiped part of it off before continuing to talk to the head of the SLDF navy. "We got good hits. But man, even with the missing HNPPCs we gave to the Galactica? We are still dumping too much heat into the main heatsinks and were still overheated, but they are working."

The ships XO came over and started talking, as new information started coming in. "Sir, the Olympia and Zeus have separated and have started launching the CAP. The Bismarck and the Caspar just reported after jumping in. It looks like the Bismarck took a small nuclear weapon close on her starboard side and mid-way down her hull. She would have taken a second one, on that side. If the Nike had not came flying in and took it instead, after the Bismarck lost most of her anti-missile systems on that side. She has started fast charging her jump drive and LF batteries." That was the first time that anyone could remember Captain Ferry's XO using the Caspar's chosen name, in public.

Admiral Franks was reviewing the data, himself, on his own screens. "Looks like the Nike did her torch of the god's routine again. She burned two of the Basestars into ash, before she got her guns into play on the other "normal" Basestars."

The Head of the SLDF Navy was humming to himself. "Looks like she took out two more Basestars and damaged another one with her own guns. The Biz took out two all by herself. That is the quick way to go from ten, to down to three capital ships. Just too bad they could not get their fighters launched into them. Query Affirmative. They might have been able to take them all out, if they got them into the battle. Then again? They had all of those Heavy Raiders to deal with. No, it was a good idea to keep them under armor for now." Franks and Ferry could not help but admire the combat capabilities and the skill the AI warship was showing.

The Admiral was playing out a dozen different variations to this main plan, but each one didn't work out as he needed them to. That just meant, that he had to come up with a new plan. That was the life of a navy commander. The enemy just would not lay down and die in the way and in the numbers, you wanted them to. There was a reason that they were called the "enemy" after all.

Admiral Franks stopped that line of thought for a few seconds. He would have plenty of time to work on those "what ifs", later. Right now, he needed to finish this fight. And then if he lived? He would refight the battle in his head, when his people were not dying. "Okay, get all of the jump fighters out on the outer edge of our screen. I want the rest of the fighters closer to their carriers. When it's time to go? I want the non-jump fighters brought back on board right then, and I don't care what carrier they land on."

Franks gave his aid a sly grin. "I wonder how long it's going to take those silicon monsters, to figure out that we are using Cylon tactics against them. All the while, they will have to switch back to the half remembered Colonial ones to fight us."

The human fleet shook itself into a different formation, and fighters that ranged in size from the 11ton Vipers MK VII to the 100ton monster that was the Kirghiz jump-fighter flowed out of the four human ships. Each of the space launched fighters had as many Colonial made Lightening-Javelins Mk 2's as they could safely carry out of the launch bays and tubes into space. They would not be carrying them for long. Those weapons would be used, as soon as the Cylons light speed scanners picked up where the human fleet had gone to. They were going to mouse trap the Cylons, when they reacted to the move the humans had just made against them.

It did not take the Cylons but a few minutes to get a reading of the human's new location. It took them longer to work out what to do about it. The first move of the Cylons was to regroup their spread out and different combat groups into one fleet again. When they split their forces into one spread out wave of leapfrogging? This had given the humans a chance to defeat them in detail. With them in one fleet, again. They jumped out to the edge of the solar system, and the fight quickly resumed. Cylon Heavy Raiders mixed it up with human piloted ones. The three Dreadstars and three remaining Basestars went after the human warships.

Nike stuck to the weak side of the Bismarck, like a tick on a butt cheek. Her weapons took out another Dreadstar. But it seemed not only to her, and to both senior leaders. Then again, the Dreadstars and Basestars were also sending more fire her way, than any other human ship. The fighting was well balanced between the two fleets without either side being able to force anything. Then an HPG message arrived from in system, and it caused a change to happen about how and why the battle was being fought at the very edge of the star system.

One word was sent out to all of the fighters, the smaller Vipers and Avars, and non-modified Visigoths started breaking off combat and going full power towards the nearest friendly carrier. As soon as the light friends were in the closest nest. The rest of the fleet jumped. They were first going further out system, and then back to the planet closer to the star. The first jump would lead the Cylons away from this star, and it would have them looking in the wrong place. That would buy some time, for the second part of the plan to gain traction. The human warships didn't join them on this part of the run, but they also jumped away from the battle with the Cylon fleet. Very soon the only ships left in that part of space, were the Cylons, scratching their heads trying to figure out what the humans were up to. It would take some time for them to realize that they had just been left with the bill. It was a case of ding, dong, and ditch on a star system scale.

The HPG message had come from one of the dropships on the planet. They had been packing everything down as fast as they could and as completely as they could, given the battle taking place over their heads. Now as each of the dropships that had been left behind, was filled to capacity with Cylon salvage and any last-minute evacuees that had come out of the woodwork.

When full? They had lifted off the planet's surface and went into a very low orbit over the planet. When the last dropship had cleared the atmosphere? The faster than light message was sent that said they were ready for a ride home. Unlike the two Olympus class ships, these dropships did not have a colonial jump drive modification. They were stuck in this system unless someone could come back and pick them up.

They were on a very tight timeline. It would not take the Cylons long to realize that they had been played. The first ships to dock were the two aerodynamic style Triumph class dropships onto the top and bottom of the Colonial Battlestar. While that was going on in high orbit. The Mammoth and the two Mules full of Cylon salvage started to attach themselves to the Bismarck and the Zug. The last dropships to attach, were the Modified Union and the two 40,000ton carrier/escort/jump warships that had been defending the fleet. The jump fighters and small jump dropships were landing, as the area that needed to be covered got smaller and smaller. Jump fuel was hard to come by, and this would save a lot of fuel. Plus, it would lower the chance of a miss jump and lose of pilot, or crew, and ship.

In less than half an hour, after the recall message. There were only the four large warships in orbit of the now mostly abandoned planet. Even they were gone, before the Cylons returned to this deep in the star system. Eight more jumps later, with only ten minutes between jumps. The hulls of every ship, to include the fighters, were put under a very detailed inspection by ships crews.

First, they ran a high voltage charge threw the outer hulls of the warships that was safely carried through any attached dropship. The support crews for the fighters and small craft were doing a more hands on inspection of those craft. "Only" a few dozen Cylon tracking devices were found, all on the hulls of the warships. They were put into lead lined boxes and taken over to the SLS Bismarck. She would be able to jump faster and farther, then any other ship in the Universe. It did not matter if it had been built by the Clans, SLDF, Colonials or Cylons.

She would return to the rest of the fleet in 48 hours, after dumping the devices into a micro black hole next to a gas giant that was not on any star map. This locations data had been pulled from the Nike, and it had been added to the navigation data that the Colonials and SLDF had been able to acquire in all of their travels. The Nike and her small crew were on their own after leaving the space around that green world. They would make the best time they could to get back to New Circe, but they would have to do it all on their own.

 **Notes** :

 **Total Population of Nike's World?** It was a world with 1890s tech. Even the people who lived there, did not know exactly how many people were on the planet. They were not inclined to tell or track those numbers, just so that a slaver could capitalize on that information.

 **Why leapfrogging?** The new Dreadstar have ex or recovered Colonial warship engines, but the older Basestars don't have them. That is a major difference in how you can use the ships in one fleet. It would be like mixing Mustangs and Gloster Gladiators in the same flight.

Oddshot. I have no idea what is wrong with your guest account, but I only get some of your messages before it is truncated and then goes away. PM me from the BattleTech site, if you can. Reference the Elephants. Hotpoint has to approve any new ships.


	42. Chapter 42 19 Feb 3049

**Chapter 42**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **19 Feb 3049**

 **New Circe**

The core of the SLDF Navy and attached smaller ships, would take two weeks to get back to New Circe from Nike's World. Some civilians might think that this was a bit of an over kill, to wait that long to get the fleet back home. That is, now that they had all of the trackers taken care of. But as Admiral Franks would say, "They had all of the known trackers." But what if they missed one? Or what if the Cylons came up with a new trick on tracking the human fleet? Then was it worth betting your life, or some civilians on that old information?

The Admiral and the Lord Protector said no, and so it took them a few weeks to get home again, after the mission was "complete". Well it was a back home for most of them. One of the good things about the delay. It was, that they used the HPG to get a message out to the planners on New Circe. It was a detailed list of recovered personnel and other resources from Nike's World. That gave the people back home some extra time to get things a little better set up, for the newest additions to this planet. It would not be much, but the extra time was used to have the maximum impact on those shell-shocked refugees.

The mission to evacuate the 1890's tech planetary population, and then the recovery of the Cylons modified liners jump drives, had not been without a laundry list of issues. This had been a huge mission, but there were always other things that needed to be done. If things went sideways in the home system. Three of the four warships could be rushed back to New Circe, it they needed to be recalled. Nike would take quite a bit longer to make it home.

The SLiE and Colonials still needed other missions to support the war the humans were fighting against the Cylons. Finding an old but failed Star League colony was big news on New Circe, and a huge accomplishment. The old Caspar had been around this part of space for hundreds of years. She had seen, and more importantly she had recorded lots of things. Although sometimes it was just blind luck, that she found something that turned out to be useful. Like when she had blown her Helium seals, and her small crew had to spend some time on a very tectonically active planet between extreme Ice Age events.

All of that data had been turned over not long after she had been made a "Bondwoman". It would take man-decades of time, to go through all of the files she had turned over to her human counter parts. Every so often a file would be found that held very valuable information that somehow had not been intuitively cataloged by the warship AI.

Like the star system, that the Star League Corps of Engineers had been working on before the fall. They had been working on this project for a few decades. But it was just one more almost minor project among thousands, which the Corps was working on around this part of the galaxy. The idea was to test ideas, on how to Terraform planets like this in more populated systems closer to Terra. Things were going well for a project that did not even have a name, just a twelve-digit number that a computer had given to it back on New Earth.

 **The Shaky system 2760's.**

The normal workflow all changed, while everyone was still recovering from the Spring Party. It had taken that long for word to reach them, about what had happened to the ruling family of the Star League on far away Earth. The system had a good-sized population, but they were working on terraforming core equipment. None of them had planned on living out there for the rest of their lives, or even for another decade. The first people with that mind set and skills. They were not supposed to even start coming out this way, for another five or six years. The messenger of doom had been a LF equipped Tramp, that had diverted here. It had been while dodging what they thought, was a Rim World Hunter/Killer warship group working in this local area of interstellar space.

Still this out of the way star system quickly became a rallying point for military units and other groups connected to the Star League. They used this area to stretch their legs, get fresh air, and top off water tanks. It had not taken the SLDF in Exile long to find the old Olympus class recharge station. That was where they found out the history of this star system.

The Corps of Engineers didn't have the money of the Star League military, or DoME. So, it was not one of the new Cyclops I or one of the two million ton new Olympus Mons class station that was shipped out to this part of space. That left them with only the standard choices for orbital support stations. They had just built a "normal" recharge station from a knock down kit, which had been on hand and left over from a different project but not needed. This station became the center point of the star system, just as the Corps wanted. It now was just used in a way that the Corps of Engineers hadn't planned on.

They did not have much combat power to add to what the General could wheeled, to take back the Star League from the Usurper. The local Corps of Engineers did send all their LF and standard Carracks to help the General in his mission to liberate Terra. That was in exchange for a huge number of Star Lords he had on hand but were less useful to his military needs.

While the people of the Corps waited for the war to end. They kept working on the terraforming of the planet and help repair what they could, that was left behind in this system. They even went as far as stripping their own ships for parts, to help repair the military's battle-damaged dropships. As every dropship left that lost system? The population got a little smaller, as the passenger areas were filled with Corps of Engineers personnel.

A major party was thrown, when word reached them about the liberation of the birth world. It was just too bad that it didn't take long for the happiness to fade, as word came back in fits and bits about the political games being played by the House Lords. It was soul crushing as more reports came in about the General getting stripped of his title as regent.

When the General ordered the Exodus, the Shaky project had to react fast. They had to choose between having enough lift to get the remainder of the population out of the system, our carry all of the military equipment that had been left behind in this system. The system commander chose people, food, and other supplies as his first priority. His staff found the dozen best dropships in system, which would be the best fit for what the local Corps of Engineers commander needed. They had to strip parts off the rest of the dropships in the star system, which would not be making the trip to the nearest rallying point.

They all were able to board those newly repaired dropships, and the station was put in hibernation mode when the last of the Star Lord class jumpships had left the system. They were never heard from again. They were lost in space and lost in history, even the clans did not have records of them. A miss jump had made it so that no one would ever know about this system. Even the people who had left earlier had not made notes of this system. It was just a minor system out beyond the edge of settled space.

That is until the Casper with a small human crew had been forced to stay here and wait for a ride to its new home of New Circe. When the report was made about this system to SLiE higher command, it had not been met by a mildly positive response. It was only after they sent a team to "inspect" the report that things really got moving. When they reported back about their find and generated a more detailed report. This had started another major operation to be launched into what was now called the Shaky System.

 **The Shaky system today.**

The expanded inspection team sent by the SLDF used a mix of Colonial transports, "normal" dropships, and an escort of a pair of Leopard CV class light jump carriers. They had found the recharging station within hours of arriving in the system. Until this third visit by the SLDF, it had not been noticed. The planet was important, but the massive space station was a piece of technology that they could lose. If the Cylons came sniffing around or a pirate band showed up, at the wrong jump point. They would stumble onto a major windfall.

Why had the first group not seen the massive hunk of metal, it was the missing energy collection sail. The massive four-kilometer recharging sail was not deployed. And it could not be seen in the storage bins at the back of the 1.5 Km long object floating in deep space. The SLDF could have made one of these stations, but it would have been a major undertaking for the already stretched SLiE. The plan B was to take the sail material off three of the reserve ships, and then donate it to the project. Those lost sails from the SLDF Navy reserve could be replaced slowly, as they had the time and the facilities to do the work.

Two of the dropships made their way around and down the length of the massive, dark, and cold station. The next item that was noticed, was that there were two combat dropships attached to two of the four drop collars fixed mounted on the station. The station was at the deep space end of the null gravity point and a long way away from the single star in this system. In another decade, the station might have been "legally" in interstellar space.

You might think that space is empty, but it is far from that. Also, items this far out are moving at speeds that your average person could not comprehend. Most fighter pilots of the 21st century would have loved to have been able to obtain the average speed of those objects, even if they were very small compared to a 30,000pound empty weight fighter. When something that fast hit something that is more or less stationary? It leaves a mark, no matter how much or how strong the armor it might be wrapped up in. The station and dropships had been sand blasted over the intervening centuries. There was no way to know how bad the damage was to any of the orbiting craft. That is until they could get a crew onboard the hulks, but most of it did look at least salvageable from the outside.

It was only when two of the larger SLDF ships flew around the attached dropships. That they could tell that most of the damage had not been done by some high-speed rocks and sand, but weapons fire. Sometime before the station had been left behind. These two ships had seen more than some combat, it looked like they had been dead center of a major battle that should have destroyed them. The rest of the inspection of the outer hull did not give them any additional information, other than that they could not see any major holes in the hull of the space station.

All of this data from the two scouting dropships, was sent to higher command in New Circe. The Confederate was a very nice lance carrier, but the Lion was a great mixed force carrier, that the SLDF needed very badly. Even if the larger dropship was just a hulk? It should be worthwhile to rebuilt and put back into service with the Exiled Star League. This newly scouted system was getting better and better, for Clan Wolverine. It was full of items, which the planet of New Circe could have used for a long time. That is, if they had thought to look at this red dwarf system some time over the last two hundred years?

With the outer inspection done of the Olympus. The dropships Hard Hat and White Skies docked to the open collars. If they had to? The pair of dropships would have used some of their small craft to dock to small access ports around the station. Docking on the collars would make the boarding of the million ton station both easier, and faster. At least it should have been. This time? It was going to be harder to do, than it should have been or planned for back on New Circe. The targeted station had no power. This was not uncommon, so the docking systems had been designed so that they could be operated without power. It was just that it was going to take some additional time and it would cause some other odd little issues. They were small, but still it would take some time for the SLDF personnel to have to deal with them.

The crews had to enter the station wearing full space suits. When the station crews had put the station in what was known as hibernation mode? The air was pumped out and it had been replaced with nitrogen and argon at very low pressure. This was done to protect the ships systems with the inert gasses. The survey crews were soon moving threw out the ship in bronze color suits built by the Colonials.

Colonial suits were lighter and more comfortable to wear than a Star League supplied deep space suit. They just were not that damage resistant if someone was shooting at you. In other words, they were perfect for this task. Two groups had started out with twenty people in each group, but soon they were down to five-man teams making their way around. The prime teams headed for the CIC and the Engineering department in the massive ship. They had only their built in or hand carried lights to light the way as they floated around the cold dark man-made object.

The first shift found and marked the way to key positions for later teams. They just had enough time to find the right places, open them up, mark them, and return to the two attached dropships. All before they would run out of air in the nitrogen filled million ton space station. The second shift was able to start bringing some of those systems online, using portable power supplies without getting lost along the way. They could not deploy the massive energy catching sail or use the built-in fusion power plant the station was built with. Those important items would need to be looked at and, in most cases, hours spent repairing them. All before anyone would trust, that not only would they work, but that they would not kill anyone on the station.

It was standard procedure to keep all of the battery banks on the recharging station topped off. This was the power supply needed to start bringing the station back into operation. Each of the 8 banks should have enough power to make a fully loaded Star Lord class Jumpship move 30 light years. All of that energy had not been kept in those massive banks. They had "leaked out" slowly over time that the station had spent in hibernation mode. By the end of the second day, even limited use of computers and lights had drained the first bank dry of power. The others had more charge, but they were using the weakest ones first.

During the second full day of the reoccupation of the station. The insides and outsides of the old station were literally crawling with people in copper colored suits. The crews on the outside were checking out the solar sail and its deployment mechanism. Inside the engineering section? They were working two major projects. One was helping with the possible solar sail deployment, and the other was working on getting the breathing air up to pressure and in the right mixture of gasses.

Besides the group working in the CIC. There were smaller three and four person teams walking and floating the now well illuminated halls, bays and cabins. It might have been better to start at the top and work their way down the station. That would have let them "check out" a lot of cabins in some kind of order. Instead, they had a list of areas that might be high value. It was like a kid opening the largest presents first on Christmas or on their Birthday. They had no idea when or if the Cylons would show up, so they had gone with the best odds.

The first areas to get a detailed inspection were the fighter bays, and to the shock of everyone. They were filled with aero fighter craft. They were not top of the line fighters of the Regular or even Royal units of the SLDF. But the six heavy fighters would have been right at home in a house or mercenary unit in 3025 or a Star League militia unit, before the fall of that organization. It would seem, what might have happened, is that if a unit had outdated fighters when they had showed up here. Then they would "trade" them, before heading out to fight the Rim World units. Or it could just have been that the Star League Corps of Engineers, did not have the money to spend on even second line SLDF equipment. Now, no one would ever know for sure.

All of the relevant information on classes of the found fighters was sent to the CIC on the station, and then transferred over to one of the support ships flying close by the station. Maybe someone with a big brain and too much free time on their hands, might be able to figure out what to do with a pair of Rievers and four Chippewas class fighters. The crew that was inspecting them did not have a clue on what they were worth. To them, they looked like metal waiting on the recyclers and the expanding blast furnaces.

Another team was working on opening each of the small craft bays. This took a lot longer than getting into the six fighter bays on the station. Small craft bays were a prime avenue for any attacking pirate teams, to try to use to takeover something like this station. When these areas were locked down into hibernation mode? The crew had locked them down, in such a way. That it was hard to force them open from either end of the airlocks, and the many blast doors in the corridors that had been lowered and physically locked into place.

By the end of their shift, they had been successful in circumventing the efforts of the long-gone crew. The small craft inspection teams were able to visually inspect four 200ton K-1 class Drop shuttles, and two smaller intersystem S7a class buses. These types and numbers of craft were about what one would expect to find, on the station with so little population to support in a star system. The SLiE had very few K-1s, and it was well known that more could be used. Only the coming of the Colonials and their Raptors had this issue been abated. That didn't mean that a few more would not be very welcome into the order of battle of the SLDF military.

The next two days were spent not exploring the station but working to get a steady supply of power into the station. That was how long it took to finally get the very tattered solar sail fully deployed and get more and more power slowly going into the storage systems. This was a new task for the clan as a whole. They had not had access to a station like this, for a few hundred years. Some thought it might have not been since, going all the way back to when they were recovering from Operation Klondike. It definitely had been back before they had run from the clan space.

For them to get the massive energy collecting sail deployed and working, in so short of an amount of time? That was just a testament to their skills and quick thinking while they were floating in deep space. With the slowly increase in the power available? They were finally able to start getting the air breathable again. The hull was sound, and by now this was not a surprise to anyone in the system. If it had not been fully sealed? Then the nitrogen would have leaked out into the area around the station a long time ago. The systems on this station were a lot more powerful than on any of the jumpships brought to support this mission. After all it was designed to command a whole star system from this remote location.

The supplies of water were quickly used up and had to be resupplied by the larger ships, gathered around the station. They, in turn, had gotten it from the nearby ort cloud to restock their supplies. By the end of the week, crews were floating around the station working on bringing up secondary systems. Most of the rest were working in the engineering and command areas, and they were slowly coming back online.

One area that was not even looked at to be brought online, were the over Kilometer diameter gravity deck and the smaller 150m VIP gravity deck. That one was mounted on the bottom of the million ton station. It would have been both a waste of time and energy for the short staff recovery teams to work on those two items. It would not take long for Colonial made Gravity plates to be retrofitted onto this prize. With the craft now more alive than in the last few centuries, now more crews were brought on board to help with this little project.

That was when the shocks started to come into the scratch-built command group. It was as report after report was made by the different teams were reviewed by the mission commander. First was that all of the food, clothes, and small arms were gone from the Station. In fact, there was only about 70,000 tons of cargo left in its massive 139,000ton capable cargo storage bays. More than a few hundred tons of those stored supplies had been used just to get the craft back in operations to support life. A lot more would be needed to make it fully mission capable.

All of the ballistic type weapon systems on the station had full loads of ammunition in their various ready bays. The items in the cargo bay, as it turned out were the types of items that someone would need to run the station. All of the construction or terraforming equipment was also missing from the massive cargo bays. The surveying team had filed a report suggesting that it might be down on Shaky somewhere. There was not much hope that much if any of it would be useful, due to the conditions on that unstable planet.

The next massive hit of a surprise was found in Bay 3. That bay was not just a cargo bay. It was also a 50,000ton capacity full pressurized repair facility, and floating in it? It was just a 17,000ton Lee class dropship. The crew that had found it had no idea what the dropship was. The only thing they knew, was that it was a massive Military Spheroid with lots of guns and massive engines sticking out of its butt. A few hundred images were taken of the ship, and they had been transmitted off station with more questions than answers. The station computers had been effectively wiped of all data, and it had not helped them work out what the huge dropship was. It was not known if this was intentional, or just the effect of the deep space radiation.

When the crews had finally been able to get Bay 4 opened. They found another 50,000ton capable bay just like Bay 3. This one was found empty, and they were a little let down after word had spread around about the found dropship. It took both teams three days to force open Bay 5, or as is normally called "The Main Bay" on this station. The wait was worth it. Not only was this a huge 150,000ton Pressurized repair bay, as designed. It was not empty. It was a 20,000ton Military Spheroid, but this class was well known to Clan Wolverine and its military trained personnel. They had not had access to one, after they had left the clan core worlds behind. The few that clan Wolverine had access to had been needed by the defending forces, to buy time for the fleeing ships.

Images were again taken of the Colossus class ship, and the whole bay filled with the needed equipment to make it a small yard ship. Special attention was paid to the open and what looked like ripped out components of the drive section of the war craft. Also, around the repair bay were several odd open squares like metal frame works. Some were not completed, and others were complete, stacked, and tied down to almost to the height of the repair bay. No one had thought to count them. If it was that important? Then the person who reviewed the images back on New Circe, could count them.

It was at the one-month mark that a full meeting was held for the whole project. The meeting was held in person or watching from in close orbit around the massive recharge station. Work had not stopped, as the command groups were at the status update meeting.

Commodore Milo Franks looked around the room. The meeting was being held on a Colonial ship and not the station. This was for the simple reason of comfort provided by the artificial gravity. His second in command was Barry Garner and he was seated to his right. He gave his second a nod of his head. This was his meeting to manage, Commodore Franks was there only to act as a big hammer if it was needed.

Barry nodded back to the Commodore. Barry had already found out that this man was a lot different from the first Star league commander, that he had worked with. Barry took a breath and tried to channel some of Bill Adama into his demeanor. "Okay, we need to start with the planetary investigation teams."

Another Colonial sat up straighter in her chair. "We are still looking the planet over. We have been using Raptors and low flying dropships equipped with both DRADIS and Star League scouting equipment like the Beagle Active Probe, to gather as much detail as we can. It would seem that the software update after Troy has increased the data intake by about 35percent. As first reported, this planet is well named. We have recorded what we would have called a major ground quake on every day/night rotation of Shaky, that rates at least Mag 8.9 on the opened scale. So far, we have not found any humans or evidence of artificial construction on the planet's surface. I know that the Star League Corps of Engineers and DoME have a history and a well-deserved reputation of being able to hide massive structures, even right under the local's noses."

This statement got a round of chuckling from the members of this meeting. "We are still looking, and we are making a detailed map of the small planet. What do we know about this world? Well, it's green and full of animal and plant life that fly, swim, and walk, for now. I say for now? Because there is very little doubt that it's headed for another major ice age, in the near future, geologically speaking. We have not found anything that shows this place was terraformed. It's almost like they were trying to hide, what they did for the terraforming. We would like to have more time to keep looking to see what we "MIGHT" find."

Barry nodded to the other Colonial. "Please make sure you update your mapping data packets, on the fleet's mainframe. We want to be able to have as detailed information, as we can get just in case. You never know, we might need this planet in the future. Next is the status update of the star system as a whole."

This briefer was a Captain in the SLDF, but older than most of the 06s that held that same rank. He had been called up from the reserve not long after the level of threat the Cylons had been realized by the general public. He was in charge of the two Light Jump Carriers, their fighters, and any other combat ship in the system. He always had the look, which seemed like he had bitten into a lemon even when he was in a good mood. He also was borderline angry all of the time.

"We have picketed the system with our limited assets. And so far, we have not detected any Cylons or other ships in the system or any evidence of others. That is beside the recharge station, which this system has been so kind to give us. It would seem, that this system was not occupied in around three hundred years. As most of you know. The first team, after the Nike, reported six artificial orbiting objects in this system. We have identified them as six stripped and more or less hulks of the Star Lord Class. They have been tagged with transponders, if we can recover them at a later time. We are still looking around, with our picket patrols. A star system is a large place to hide things. We have a due in, according to the HPG message I was given. We should be getting one of the Titan class jump carriers, in the next few weeks."

Barry was tapping on the screen of a little hand-held computer that was SLDF issue. "Thank you, Captain. When you do your next alert and training exercise? Please pass to the flag any supply issues, after your last training review."

The big part of the meeting was next, and it was the one everyone was looking forward to. It was the last briefer, and the head of the station's reactivation teams. This was the whole reason that so many of the SLiE's resources had been diverted here. "I will not go into most of the information that is widely known, already. The dropships in the two internal bays are finally positively identified as a Colossus and a Lee class dropship. Both of those ships? They are Royal type ships, but unfortunately they do not seem functional at this time."

A soft rumble started going around the metal walled room from the physical attendees and the Teleop attendees. The Captain had a sly smile on her face. "Before everyone gets to excited. Query Affirmative. They both looked to have been stripped of a lot of engine and life-support equipment. In short? They are not combat ready, and we don't have the parts, out here to make them ready. As far as I know. We do not even have the parts on hand, back in New Circe. At least not in any ready to use storage warehouses that I know of."

You could feel the letdown cross the room like a wave of grey that could not be seen, but it very much could be felt. New Circe only could support a limited number of different types of dropships. That was one of the reasons, why getting rid of the two Trojan class ships was as important to the SLDF as a whole. It was from a support point of view alone. Those ships might be great and even needed, but they still might be scrapped in the end. That call would be made at a much higher level than anyone in this room would sit in.

"The two dropships on the outside of the station were both opened to vacuum. The Lion has a 5m long crack in the outer hull, and the Confederate has a 3m crack running through about the same area. The thinking is? That it looks to have happened, before and they were left behind when the Corps left. Again, the engine and life-support equipment were removed from both dropships. Not ripped out but carefully removed, and they even took the time to mark the loose wires. As some of you know already from the public reports back home. Query Affirmative. The Confederate class dropships are known to be maintenance hogs, even if it is considered to be a great raider. This type of Lion can carry two lances of mechs and a company of light tanks. We do not have enough of this class in operational service either."

The Captain stopped talking and waited for a few seconds. When he started up again, he changed topics. "We have gotten most of the station back into operation, with the backup fusion plant coming online last shift. We will need to keep having support ships bringing in food and ice, to support the station and gravity time for the health of the crew. All of the repair bays seem to be in working order, with enough parts to keep it in working order for some time. We have the station, but it is going to take a lot of support to put it into any use."

The briefer stopped talking again, and he took a sip from an open topped glass. That was something you could only do on a revolving style deck, or in an area that had artificial gravity plates made by the Colonials. "All of the weapons on the station have checked out, so far. And we will be able to start test firing each of them in a few days, as a final check out. I would like to put in a supply request for a few hundred tons of standard armor plate. I want to patch the outer hull of the station and add some reinforcing on places, that are known issue points for this design. After that? I would like to task the Hard Hat to move the Confederate and the Lion into the now open Bay 4. When we have time? We will try to get them up on shore power, and we can see what can be done with them. I think we can at least fix their hulls with what the fleet has on hand as spares. After that, it will be up to the Station to do the rest of the work."

Commodore Franks nodded and for the first time in the meeting, he joined into the meeting. He now was thankful that he had taken all of those notes when he had "talks" with his father "The Admiral" Franks. "I will pass that along to higher command. I think that it will also give you a chance to test the repair bays support systems, on something non-critical to the station and fleet. I know that in less than fourteen days, two hundred additional personnel will be coming out to man this station. We all know how important, that three more large repair bays could help our people. Query Affirmative. They would not be able to support the big warships, but all of the dropships and smaller colonial ships? They could use this. It would free up a lot of yard space, back home. Captain. Please bring everyone up to speed on what we talked about last night." Commodore Franks looked at Barry, who was tilting his head at the mission commander.

The Colonial acting "Captain" was a little surprise at this order. "Everyone knows about the fighters and small craft that we found already. The Dropships were not fully loaded with combat equipment. That does not mean that they were totally empty of combat equipment, ether. We have not found any tanks, fighters, or even small arms on them. We did find 24 battlemechs on the two dropships that were in the Shaky Prime's repair bays. We have fired them all up, and some of our people have checked out their diagnostic systems. That was the only way that we could find out what they were, in some cases."

Barry stopped talking and used his finger, to slide to the right digital file on his little computer. This was something that he had not expected to cover in this meeting. He slipped just a little in his word choice. "I'm not a ground commander, and we will be sending the complete list about the mechs, when we get the word to do so. If any of you have an idea about how to use them here? I am all ears. To start with we found three 35ton mechs in the form of a Falcon Hawk, Night Hawk and a Talon. Now the Night Hawk is not the same, as what we now call Nighthawks. That has caused some confusion for everyone who has seen the reports."

He stopped talking and then took a breath. "How about I just go down the list?"

He was met with nodding heads in an agreement to his statement. "Okay then! We found a pair of prototype Dragon Fires, a prototype 75ton Maelstrom, and a pair of prototypes of the 100ton Devastators. Those were the hard ones to workout, what they were. The Lynx, Cestus, Excalibur, three Shootist, a pair of Spartans, and Emperors. In a side storage area, off of Bay 5. We found a 95ton Nightstar and a 100ton Pillager. What I think higher command will like? Is the Riflemen II, a pair of Shoguns and of all things an Annihilator still wrapped in plastic. That is what we found, so far. I think that this is going to be it."

One of the second officers connected to the ground teams, before being sent out this way, let out a bit of a whistle. "I thought the old SLDF like to only field a few different types of machines in the same Regiment. That is a short battalion, and it is a mishmash of machines like what the house units like to do. Why would they have three escort mechs like a Shootist in that small of a unit? That does not make any sense, according to their normal unit MTOs. Query affirmative."

A second person was looking at the data and had been working on some ideas of her own. "They only took, what they knew they could support. They left behind prototypes and or low total production machines. They needed to maximize what they could support, long term, not the most cutting edge. That was smart, very smart, and some long-term planning. Too bad we do not know what happen to them, when they left here. query affirmative. The commander must have been highly skilled. I wonder why we have not found any tanks or aero fighters that should have been left behind for the same reason those mechs were?"

The second officer of the White Skies was flipping through images on his computer and zoomed in on something that stood out to him. "Shipping cubage. You can maybe only put 100 tons in a mercantile or Mec cube. You can put two 50 tonners in one, or a mix of a lot of stuff, but still only 100 tons. I saw a smaller version of these crates, for moving cargo trucks supporting Captain Copeland's last supply run."

She spun her screen around to show the rest of the room what was on her small screen. "I bet they reinforced them. Then they rolled in a heavy tank or some smaller ones, and then they loaded the cube onto a dropship. They might have used Bay Four. All they would have to do is load, and then stack the next cube on top of it. You keep doing this until you reached the deck head or deck mass limit for whatever dropship you are loading. That would maximize your cargo space, that you have on your other dropships. I bet you could take the wings and tail fins off the fighters and small craft, and then do the same with them. It would take longer, but I bet you could do it."

Commodore Franks nodded and raised an eyebrow. "That is an interesting idea, and it makes since. They took an idea and then used it to an unusual end. It would not be a great idea in a combat deployment. But if you were not going to need them for a long period of time? It is a good Fraking idea, and it fits very nicely with the evidence we have seen out here. Looks like Copeland's runs had an unexpected payoff." As "only" a Commodore, he was not read into all of the unexpected payoffs. As a member of the Franks family, he had heard more than a few tidbits of data.

The meeting went on for some time, but all of the big things were put out already. Every week the meetings would be held, but little new information would come out. The mechs were sent out along with the old fighters to New Circe on a supply run between the two star systems. The fighters were replaced by a pair of new Colonial crewed Avars and two lances of SLDF jump Kirghiz. The requested armor plate was sent, and now with the expanded crews. The outer hull of the station was very quickly repaired, and work was started on detailed inspection and spot repair of the two smaller combat dropships.

One by one. The spare parts were worked out and handmade, in more than one case. It didn't take long for the larger but easier repaired Lion, to be moving under its own power. It would sit at the jump point for a few weeks before it was taken out of system. The ship that had taken out the Lion had brought some groundbreaking news from home. The first test from using salvaged Cylon jump engines with SLDF computers had finally worked, on two of the test ships. This brought up a very important issue that they might be able to "fix". The Olympus class recharge station with its fully functional repair bays was in an empty, and more importantly exposed system. It would have been a major diversion of the limited heavy and light combat units of the SLDF to protect it. That was a type of diversion that would hurt the SLiE very badly.

That was when it was brought up about the captured Cylon Resurrection ship, at a high-level meeting on New Circe. The captured massive ship had been put into orbit far out system, over the Newgate mining outpost and prison as soon as it had been brought into this system. No one knew or agreed, on what to do with the "sleeping" Cylons. Even after almost two years, it was still a touchy subject, for not only the Colonials, the SLDF, and the POW's that had come over to the human side of this conflict. So far about one hundred human forms had been "awaken", as a test. But without a core program? It was not easy to predict what was going to happen with them. The recovered POW's from Troy had been trying to help, and it had "Saved" a dozen of them that had died due to injuries and accidents.

The Cylon ship was huge, at close to two million tons of mass. It was larger and more massive than the Colonial Mercury class Battlestar. The captured ship needed an equally massive jump engine. Just taking it out of the ship was a massive undertaking by a huge number of Station's crew to do the work. When the massive Cylon made jump engine was pulled from the oddly designed ship? It made it easier for the people in this system to sleep better at night, knowing that the ship would not be able to leave the system. If something happened? The only thing it could do, was use its very undersized intersystem plasma drive to move around the outer star system.

At first the massive jump drive was taken to be studied on the slowly expanding "Station". It was very valuable, but higher command knew there would come a time that it would be better used somewhere else.

With the successful integration and testing of the first capital Cylon jump engines into a SLDF Navy ship, ideas flowed. Some of those ideas were flawed, but some of the others might have sounded just a little crazy. After a lot of computer time and about half a day of SLS Nike's undivided attention, a plan was put into action that would use the latest recovered assets. The engine was pulled out of the classroom and wrapped in a thin skin of armor plate, that had been recovered from a wreck a few hundred light years from this system. Then it had been pulled out of the cargo bay on "The Station" for one more and maybe the last test of the device.

The massive Cylon made device was too big to fit in one of the cargo bays on the modified Riga class ship called SLS Yukon. It could be moved, but after all it was 120,000 tons of engine. It was not something the SLDF Navy or the SLiE normally moved around in interstellar space. The Yukon was not traveling alone, but with three ships of colonial manufacture. They were carrying a variety of items, but the most sought-after was the Colonial made gravity plating. It was the total production for the last three months, along with all of the stock held in the reserve. They would be using a lot of the skill learned by the Styx and Zephier's crews to carry this off. The massive Cylon engine had to be attached to the flat part, near the nose of the warship. Each of the jumps would only be about half as long as was possible for the weakest jump engine in this little convoy. The shorter jumps were hoped to make it easier on this one of a kind engine. Some of the engineers thought that they were whistling in the wind, but the ex Cylon POW's from Troy had not been able to identify any issues with carrying the engine in this way. Then again, no one had tried to move something like this before.

The Yukon was letting the Hard Hat take the massive Cylon engine from its hull. The drive with its thin armored covered box still intact, was slowly pushed toward the station. The Olympus class recharging station has an open area under what most people called the "hat". The hat was the largest gravity deck put into widespread use. It was in this opening below that ring. That the metal box was first pushed into, and then quickly attached to the hard metal surface on the top, bottom and on two of the smaller sides. This looked easy for the team to accomplish, only because of the skill of the tug and the crew she deployed.

The rest of the small convoy quickly unloaded their cargos of material and personnel. They then went into both the station and to the other nearby ships, that were still in this system to support this now expanding mission. The Destroyer/Carrier would spend four days in this system. She was to be acting as the bad guy, for the local defense force to train against, before the warship was heading out on another mission. The crew of the destroyer knew that the next mission was not going to be as interesting as the one they had just supported.

While the ships were having their little wargame, hundreds of personnel were swarming over the hull of the station of every hour on every day. It did not take long before the empty area of the Olympus was completely enclosed with a growing thickness of hard metal. When the newly closed off area was airtight? A dozen precut valves opened, and a breathable mix of gasses was slowly let into the armored shelled covered engine. When the pressure did not drop by any measurable amounts. The heavy hatches that were cut into the metal to connect the new engineering area to the rest of the station were opened for the first time. These were only the first steps of a long process, but it was progress.

When Robert was jumping out, as the Captain of the Styx again, to help out with the evacuation of Nike's World. The station was almost ready for its first test jump. It was a long and drawn out testing regiment. After all the Olympus was not designed to move around a jump point, much less move a few light years. These test jumps were only a foot note in the reports trickling out of this system, but the notes were reviewed by a lot of very powerful people. When the SLS Styx jumped into the L1 point over Nike's World. The Lord Protector was on "The Station". She looked down at the planet that looked to her to be their senior leader and she smiled.

The evacuation plans had fallen back to Plan C, as soon as the Cylons had shown up in such a large number at Nike's World. The area set aside for what was being called the Victoria City-State, was growing like crazy. They had almost three years to slowly get ready and plan for what needed to be done. Between that and the experience gained from working with the Colonial City state, they had done a lot of work. Also, it helped that this new City State spoke the same language, and they had a shared history with the old Star League. This cut down on a lot of the issues, that had come up with the Colonials in the early days of setting up that City State.

That didn't mean that they did not have any problems with these new additions. It was just that they should not have as many, major ones. As the Colonial ships started coming back as soon as they were loaded. It meant that instead of one wave of new citizens, as was originally planned. It was broken up into smaller waves, just one after the other like they were an ocean. There was a long delay between the last Colonial ship arriving at New Circe, and the massive load that was going to be coming in on the SLDF Navy ship and dropships.

The smaller waves of new arrivals did help with the working out of a few bugs in the planned operation, before the final wave of over 300,000 people and animals landed on their heads. She was thinking that Commander Copeland was going to be very happy, that he only had to get the three dropships back to this system. Then those three dropships and their cargos were going to be someone else's problem. The three dropships would put down in the new City-State in one huge influx of cargo and personnel, and the locals would start working them into the new homes.

Those three dropships would not be ready for any more missions, for some time to come. The planners said that the first major improvement to the rest of the SLiE and SLDF would be in less than six months, from this group. It was hoped that they would start filling in even more of the Infantry and artillery units before they could pick-up high-tech skills. The Colonial supplied VR was going to cut into this expected training time, at least that was the hope.

The SliE needed trained people as well as farmers and Ranchers. The few Colonial transplants and "Bondspeople" taken from the Cylons were already filling in, and in some cases. They were replacing lost Wolverines in the combat units. The rest were very helpful, as long as they did not have to deal with mechs or power armor.

Jennifer turned from the massive window and walked to her hangar. She might be the leader of the people on the planet, but she also had to maintain her skills at the stick of her chosen weapon. For the next two weeks. She would be spending twenty hours a week at the controls of a space fighter. She was lucky, and she didn't have to worry about being down checked. When she took this job? She had been put on the reserve roster. She now had a Tomahawk with her name in block letters under the cockpit. As it happened it was the same fighter her grandfather had flown when he had been the Lord Protector, until he had retired. While she was just able to focus on the joys of flying, others were having to work.

 **Helios Gamma well past Ophion**

Captain Hewitt let out a little breath. He didn't know that he had picked up a habit of holding his breath before each jump, which would take them someplace that they might "bump" into anyone. It didn't even have to be Cylons, even humans made him do this.

They were well away from any star or planet, and HH had selected this location to make sure they didn't startle the group they wanted to visit. "Okay Morton, bring us in close and steady. Let's make sure that they are still here."

The ship's XO and second in command barely contained a snort. He didn't need to be given any commands, as the covert warship slowly moved towards the last known location of the target they were looking for. Morton had a mental bet on whether the target was still there, and if it was not. Another set of bets would be on, if it was missing because of Cylons or internal issues?

A few hours later. HH was looking at scenes that by all rights, should have been listed as a major industrial accident in space. It was centered-on a wreck of a sub light Botanical cruiser class ship. It had been hit hard by the Cylons, using weapons that were just short of nuclear ordnance and left for dead. Around the long ship were half a dozen other spaceships attached at odd angles to the longer cruiser. The only way you knew that it was still alive, were the few lights coming from the cruiser, that made up the central structure and a few other attached ships. It didn't take long to contact the train wreck in space and get clearance to dock. It would seem that they were still alive, and the XO had lost his mental bets.

 **The Sand**

The first thing that hit HH when he exited the docking hatch was the smell, but it was quickly followed by the heat. It must have been nearly 120 in the docking bay, and that was a clear sign that things were going badly for this homemade space station. This deep into space, it was hard to vent excess heat. Vacuum is one of the best insulators known to man. Spaceships generate a lot of heat, and that was not counting the body heat the crew produced.

HH kept walking and he tried not to let his face change, as he walked up to the man waiting on him. "Mike, good to see you're still alive."

Mike Kay was the leader of this group of ships and survivors. "HH good to see the Cylons have not found you, yet. What can I do for you?"

The two men turned and started walking down the main corridor of the sub light ship. HH could feel the sweat starting to run down his spine as they walked. HH pitched his voice low, so that no one could hear them talk. "So, Mike. How is it going?''

Mike slightly turn to look at the warship's captain. "Could be better. We found what remains of a fuel tanker. She had one whole tank still holding pressure and full of fuel, and two others that had measurable amounts, despite the damage. For once, fuel is not an issue for us. If you have any extra food? I can trade you some fuel for it. How about you?" He had seen a change in the officer since the last time they had crossed paths.

HH did not react to the look or the information that had just been given. "We're good on fuel. We found a small post 1st war depot, and I have the wife moving 500 meals into the docking collar. They're old, but they tested as being good. We opened one to make sure the self-test on the packaging was still working. It would seem that they are."

Mike about tripped over his feet, and his voice got a little too loud. "Really!" His voice dropped down a few octaves. "What is it going to cost me?"

HH kept walking down the hot corridor. "We will call it even, for you helping those kids. I think we will call it, looking after the Health and Welfare of spacers." One of the key legal requirements of the Colonial Navy, was to look after the health and welfare of ships on the space lanes that supported the whole Colonies of Kobal. "How goes the rebuilding?"

Mike dropped the idea about the "free" food. "Not as fast as I would like. We have made up our own backup hydroponics lab, but we still need some more work to get Number 1 dome ready." All of the domes had been "cracked". After Mike had found this ship. He had started inspecting the ship and its dozen domes. Within a few weeks he had started to do a detailed survey of the ship, thinking about how to fix it with what they had on hand.

"If you have 20 or 25 space rated crew that I could borrow for a while? I can get almost all of the outside work done in a few days." Mike pointed to a nearby hatch window, as a way to explain what he was talking about.

HH looked out into a dark area, which took him a few seconds to realize that it was the inside of one of the wreck domes. He had that number of crew, but he was not going to let this man know that or anything related to Ragnar. "I can have 15 people ready, to take to space in a few hours. Do you want to cycle your suits threw my engineering department for recharging?"

Mike slowly turned to now look closely at the other man. Very few things were free, in his mind's eye. "Now, what is that going to cost me?"

HH was walking a thin line. He was directed to scout and help any humans, which still might be alive in Colonial space. But he was not to reveal anything about Ragnar, at least not yet to those outside of his ship. Mike pulled out a thin stack of pages, from his cargo pocket. "I need you to keep an eye on anyone of the people in these images. All of them are dangerous, but some are more so than others. Do not kill them, but you need to put them someplace safe and under suicide watch. That is the important part, if you know what I mean."

Mike took the sheets of paper, and he looked at each of the different images. What HH was asking, was not that much to ask for at first glance. But if you think about it, it was a lot to ask when you add in the details. "Okay, and yes. I would like to rotate my suits for recharging and safety checks. Let's go to my office and talk some more in private, and we can catch each other up."

HH was still on shift when 15 of his crew, being supervised by 5 of Mike's people went to work. All they had to do was go to different marks on the 4 nearby domes and pull off what they needed, without breaking it. Then they would "fly" it back, and then put items marked down as blue 1 were blue 1A was marked on the right dome. Some of the supplies pulled from Ragnar before the small warship had left, had been basic battle damage repair items. This was a good mission to knock the rust off the new hands, and get some work done to help this little pocket of survivors.

Early the next day HH went back to Mike's office. It was a long walk, but it had the best views of the dome they were working on. The hatch was open and HH walked right into the office of this "station's" commander. "So, how did it go?"

Mike about levitated out of the chair he had been sitting in while looking into the dome. "FRAK! Man! Don't do that to a man of my years." Mike made a gesture like he was having a heart attack. He held it there for a few seconds, before addressing the other officer. "Your people were great! I thought they would need two days and a few hundred-man hours, but your team got all of the work done in one long shift!" My people spent the rest of the night running diagnostics and fixing some issues that were missed or repaired poorly. We are just waiting for the icemen to show up."

The two man talked some more, and Mike started to point out different things in the dome. The massive "sun" was on but without an atmosphere to scatter the light, everything looked… cold and with sharp shadow lines. Outside of the collection of damaged ships attached to each other, a new ship jumped close by. Most people didn't know about how a botanical ship regulated the heat for her crew and kept all of those plants alive. But it was due to some special engineering. Most ships just had a lot of radiators mounted on the outsides of the ships, and then used water pumping threw them to cool themselves.

On ships like this, those radiators ran into the domes and not on the exposed sides of the great ships. The air in the domes was a lot better at "taking" the heat, then empty space was. Mike had been bringing in ice to help keep his people from roasting to death after they had found this ship. Today was just another of the schedule drop offs of ice. The crew of that ship had been dropping off ice around Colonials space since before any of the current crew were born.

HH watched as the ship landed in a landing bay, that used to transfer people directly into the domes for whatever reason they made the trip. When the inner hatch opened, HH watched as 100 tons of ice was moved between the two locations. He noticed right off the bat, that the artificial gravity was turned off in that area of the dome. That was because there was no way 4 men could have moved that much mass under anything like normal gravity by hand. HH could tell that they had done this before, as they moved the "cube" out of the hatch and to a nearby "box". Not one of them had noticed that the top of the Dome was now air "tight".

This box was something the new owners had fitted to the sub light garden ship. The 100ton ice cube was loaded onto the box, and the crew "walked" back to their ship. When the hatch was closed behind them, and locked. The metal ice filled box was lowered until it touched the metal radiators. Due to thermal shock, you did not want hot or warm metal touching something that was -150 Fahrenheit. It did not take but a few minutes before HH could see the ice start to sublime. Soon it started to shift in the high walled metal box. He about jumped out of his boots when he felt the air move out of an unseen vent at his ankles.

Mike felt something and he quickly walked over to a nearby head high vent. "Oh, by the gods! This feels good!"

HH would take the man at his word, but he did not feel any difference in the temperature of the air moving around his ankles. In less than an hour, the 100tons of ice was reduced to a metal box about a tenth filled with clear liquid. Most gasses were 500 times less dense in solid form than in their gas form. That is why you have to be careful when you deep fry a turkey. HH had to oversee some training of first aid being given to the locals, and he could not stay watching the ice melt.

At the end of the first shift, HH was back in the command section of what most people here called "The Sand". He was stopping by, before he went back to his ship for the night. He was expecting to leave this group of survivors late the next day. When he entered the command center, he noticed that all eyes were on more ice being brought into the dome.

Mike almost had a tear in his eye, as two more of the large cubes were brought into what HH knew was "The Dome. "That is going to be the last ice today. I paid with extra fuel, to get them to get another full load for tomorrow. This should give us enough pressure in the dome to check for any leaks."

Even HH could tell that the light was different in the newly repaired dome. He had no idea what to say, so he just got down to business and let the leader know about his plans to leave the station. The pair also did a little house cleaning of small issues. The largest was a gift from Mike. It was a recovered fuel pump that HH needed for his port wing mounted drive pod. It was more or less the payment for all of the help and supplies that HH and his crew had given to "The Sand".

When HH left his ship, the next morning. He noticed something different as soon as the hatch way connecting the two vessels opened. First was that the temperature had noticeably dropped, and the smell was less powerful. As he moved around the ship, he noticed the mood of the people had improved over night. He even saw a smile on one of the people he passed in the corridor, and those were very rare to find after the Cylons attack.

When HH walked into the command center, again without being stopped at the hatch. He made a note to address this security issue to Mike. HH walked all the way to stand beside Mike, who was looking down at a larger video screen showing more ice being moved into the dome. That seemed to be the center of attention for the whole command group.

HH broke the ice. "At least you won't have to worry about having enough water for showers, after importing all of that ice. I can tell that the temperature dropped already. Getting all of that heat pulled out of the metal from the rest of the ship, is going to take a while yet."

Mike had a toothy smile. "The convection currents will only get stronger and cool things down faster. We might have to break out the coats, when the temperature drops below 80 in the rest of the ship for the first time. The plants will love having all of this warmth to grow with."

"You are going to have to crank up the power, to crack all of that water to get O2 to breathe." HH was fishing.

Mike smiles a knowing smile. "The ice they collect out by Ophion, is 80 percent Carbon dioxide ice and only about 20 percent water ice. When we get to about 7 psi? We will move some of our younger plants and put them into the beds nearest the radiators. We also will start pumping some of that CO2 into the algae vats. The high concentration of CO2 should increase the yields explosively. As the plants and algae grow, they will convert the atmosphere to something breathable for the rest of us. I don't know how I can repay you. It was going to take me two or three months to get to this point, and I didn't know if we would make it are not."

"Just pass along those images and a warning about those people, and we are good. I might need to send a few groups out to you, which might need some food. Oh, and you might want to plant some of these when the soil and temperatures are right."

HH passes over four packs of seeds that had strange writing on them. Mike takes them and looks at the image of some strange plants with writing he did not understand. When he flipped each packet over. He notices that the back had an attached card, that explained what and how to get the best results out of the seeds. Mike had no idea that these seeds had come from a very long way away. Colonel Bellamy had dipped into his own hydroponics supplies, and he had given HH a dozen packets to be used to help any groups that might have a chance.

Mike puts the packets of seeds in his pocket. Seeds, no matter what they were, had a value greater than fuel.

HH looked at the mass of jumbled metal as the ship moved away. It was time to move to the next group that Captain Hewitt had found. That one would be harder to deal with. Pirates' surprisingly were not that trusting in others. HH and his crew had helped to improve this groups chances. Hopefully if they helped enough different groups in the area, some of them would survive. At least long enough that they could be moved to Ragnar. Like with seeds, you never know what will take root and what will wither and die.

 **Notes**

 **How do you use the cargo space to ship Mechs, tanks and the like high density and oddly shaped items in the most efficient way?** I took the idea of TEU used to ship high end sport cars and boats today.


	43. Chapter 43 6 March 3049

**Chapter 43**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **6 March 3049**

 **Cate's Hold**

The Zephyr popped out of in-between space at the zenith jump point of the Cate's Hold system. They used the HPG trick to fool any maybe watchers, to show that this ship was just another visitor. This jump point had been picked because of the information that Robert's mission had uncovered. This was the least traveled entry point to this system. There was not another jump ship or living soul at this point or within a few tens of billions of KMs when the modified Colonial ship "popped" into being.

Felix did not have to give many orders to his crew as he felt the ship "arrive". The great ring had kept turning during all four of the last jumps. That was the way it had been designed to work, but they had wanted to make sure that anyone from the Inner Sphere would not notice it. He did look around the area. "Threat! Are we clear?"

The radar operator was taking in a lot of data. So far, as best that he could tell? There was not anyone near them. "Sir! Scope is clear out to six light seconds and growing."

Felix turned to look at the mission commander. "Colonel, we have entered the system clean, or so it seems."

Lt Colonel Sarah Mann was about to have a problem breathing. She knew a lot about this system. She had been here three times before this mission, and she had been one of the ones bitten with the "Lost Unit" bug. She had studied this system and read every report, and she knew things. Like she had known that there were not any jump point stations. She had been both upset and happy when it was reported that not one, but two tunnels had been found.

"Commander, please pass along who we are and that we are coming down for some prospecting and to stretch our legs."

All Felix could do was nod his head. He understood that this was the primary mission, but he did not grasp if it was that important. He had no idea how maybe finding a few weapons, which were hundreds of years old would be worth this amount of effort. Still he did what he was told. When the first messages were sent out, and they had been replied and acknowledged them being in the system. The Tug, two Lions, K1, and the slightly vismoded Cargo King separated from the 4000foot long ship. They would be making a steady 1g burn from the jump point to orbit. When the rest of the dropships left the Zephyr? They were filled with most of the "extra" personnel living in the ring on the modified Colonial ship.

Felix turned to his command center. "Okay, I know that we are alone out here. But I want all weapons turrets manned or slaved to the fire control systems. They are to stay under cover, until ordered."

This ship might have been a civilian ship before the Cylon attack. By now that had changed. Now this ship was armed with Laser AMS in two dozen locations. It also had a dozen Class 5 HODs, and over a dozen different lasers. She was not packing what would be called anti-ship or anti Basestar weapons. They would there to clear the skies of any Cylon Heavy Raiders that might be found. Those weapons were equally effective against human crewed fighters and dropships.

It was only a three day burn for the little convoy of dropships to make it into orbit. Just as they settled into orbit, they had not asked to land yet. This waiting was causing not a small amount of issues for the people on the ground. Captain Fallstaff looked over to the mission commander. He was going to be the ground commander, but he knew that you had to be careful with newly promoted Lieutenant Colonels.

"Colonel Mann, the local traffic control called again."

Colonel Mann let out a bit of air out of habit and almost lost her lunch. They all were in 0g, and she was not liking it. "Tell them, that we are a Mercenary support unit that just came off a contract on the Fedcom/DC lines. We are just doing some R and R while we wait to start a new contract." This was not the first time, that she had given this directive to those on the ground.

Mike Fallstaff was also not liking the 0g. "I did, but I will send a reinforcing message. Can we fire up the "prototype" radar?"

Mann almost smiled, but only almost. "You know? That sounds like a good idea. They sound like they are getting a little nervous down there. Make sure you let them know about the "prototype" before you put power to it. The sooner we can start, the sooner we can get gravity back."

The idea was that they were going to orbit for a while "looking", and then this prototype ground penetrating radar would fire up to help them look. The downside was that the idea of being in orbit, under 0g hadn't sounded that bad when this plan was put forward. They could just land in the area Jess had found, what they needed to find. The good thing was that those few orbits, was that it let them see that there were over twenty other "active" search sites on the planet below them. All of those active search sites would help cover for them.

The small convoy of dropships spent the next three hours blasting the planet with "low" powered Radar. When Colonel Mann had enough of floating around her cabin? She contacted the communication section, to let the locals know that they were coming down and where they wanted to land. Colonel Mann was quickly informed, that after they landed. They would be visited by an official within hours of landing, to handle any paperwork that needed to be done.

Mann had an area that she wanted her craft to land around. The set up was for the Mule/Cargo King to land in the center of the two known tunnels that Jess had found. The three more combat related ships would drop in such a way, that they would be outer defensive points. The K-1 was going to be set up near the Mule/Cargo King and close to the center of the formation. The K-1 would be her ride out to the jump point if and when, it was time for her to make it to any meetings.

It didn't take long for a camp to be set up around the area that all of the dropships had landed. Mann took a page from Jess's book. She had her people putting up tents, campgrounds, marked out sports fields and even a field kitchen or two. Only a few vehicles were off loaded and none of them were related to mining or combat.

The radar and other systems on the combat dropships told the Colonel that someone was coming out to them. The landing site was only a few hours' drive from the main space port of the planet. The mechs still inside two of the dropships were manned, but they still did not exit the craft. The weapons turrets would have to handle any surprises that might be in the local area.

There were two medium sized civilian hover cars that came out to the grounded dropships. They were directed to the grounded K1, by a traffic control point that they had set up after landing. What those two hover sedans saw, was a group setting up for some camping or maybe some light prospecting in an openish field. All of this was what you would expect seeing, knowing that this group had their own transports. Other than that? It looked like most of the other dig sites if a bit more organized, than some of the dig sites currently going on around the planet.

A woman from the second hover car was escorted to the K1. This was the locals first time on one of these craft, but she had been down this road before. What surprised her, was that she was shown into an office that she had been told was the unit's commander.

Mann looked up when her office door opened. She just pointed to a seat, and then handed off a digital pad to the escorting crewmember. Mann looked at the woman in what looked a lot like a police officer's uniform that the Colonials used in the city state.

Mann pointed her head to the chair across from her desk. "Thank you for coming out this way. I had planned to come see someone from your office in a day or two. I understand that we should let you know what areas, that we are looking for any of your local treasures to be hidden in."

Ronda smiled. She had heard this line before, and sometimes it was even true. "When my boss saw what you were landing with? It was decided that I should come out, as soon as it looked like you had settled down."

Sarah Mann put on a smile that she wanted down to the millimeter. "Really, four dropships caused that much of an issue?"

Ronda had an answering smile, that was equally fake. "Sometimes, but it was what those dropships might be that got some attention. Like, where did you get the Lions from?"

Mann now was very thankful for those books that Robert had brought back. "Oh, those two? We traded a crap load of mech salvage to the Wolf's Dragoons back in 41, when they were trying to rebuild."

Ronda knew about the Wolf's Dragoon's and what happened to them before, during, and after the 4th SW and the 3039 war. They were a mercenary unit, so them selling off some dropships that was extra to their now reduced needs. That was something that made perfect sense to her. "But what about that one with the arms?"

Mann now gave a fake laugh. "The Tug? That was what my father started this unit with when he left Federated-Boeing Interstellar. Do I need to tell you were we got the cargo hauler from? I think I still have the point of contact over at Federated-Boeing Interstellar, if you want to talk to them about getting one of your own."

Mann could not help but have a flash back to the Elephant class ship. It was technically a Tug glass dropship, but it carried almost 2,100tons of cargo, 12 battlemechs, 4 small craft, 4 infantry Platoons and 8 heavy vehicles. With the coming of the Colonials all of the tugs had been put back into service. Still even with only 40 of the 80 Colonial ships "active" at any one time, that was a huge fleet to support. With so many of those ships needing work, the tugs were quickly over tasked.

The Station along with support from ground side, had dusted off building plans and 4 more hulls were laid down while Bill Adama was still on old Kobal. The Syssiphus was the first of that group to be finished. 6 more upgraded Elephants were being built that would leverage the higher technology that was being built around New Circe. Rumors had it that 4 jump tugs, based on this higher tech version and massing over 17,000tons were on the drawing boards. Those would pull double duty as a tug and a light assault interstellar craft. But this was information that was not going to be talked about this far from New Circe.

Ronda had to give it to this woman. She had made some good points. "No, but I can't remember when I have seen a tug on the ground before. Now to business. Your message said you were going to be looking around for the old SLDF base. I assume that this is the area your looking at, or are you going to start looking more far a field?" The tone Ronda used was a little on edge. Having this large of a mech unit roaming around, was normally called a raid.

"Oh no! This is the general area, that we are looking in. At least the ones that want to look for it. Some of my people are just wanting to spend some time relaxing." Mann passed over a different electronic pad, this one had a section of the planet with a red square drawn on it.

Ronda's eyes shot up, as she reviewed the data on the screen. "That is a large section of land. Like sixteen lots! You want to dig up the whole area?"

Mann laughed and it was a true laugh. "Oh God no! That is just the area that we do not want people to come into while we are here. We have been in combat a long time, and we want to be able to not have to worry about strangers getting under foot for the next few months. This seemed to be the easiest plan to meet those goals."

Ronda could feel her eye's getting narrow. Her mental alarm bells were ringing, but there was nothing she really could do about it. "That is going to cost." Again, it was not out of the norm for prospectors to want to keep any other eyes at bay from what they were doing. "I will need 15,000 C-Bills. You will get half of that back if you mitigate your excavation sites before you leave. We are tired of people leaving holes all over the countryside."

The meeting went on for another half hour. It covered the do's and don'ts, and they also talked about any past issues. After midnight tonight, the land Mann had marked out was there's for the next six months. That was the standard length of a contract if you wanted to be legal with your digging. Now anything they recovered "belonged" to the people who found them. And if you believed that? You needed to be fitted with a "I love me jacket."

The next meeting for the Colonel in hiding, had been one more meeting with a local. It was the meat factor, and the ground team would be eating very well. The space team was not going to have it as nice. But soon a small craft that the Syssiphus had carried would be loaded down with nice cuts of meats, and some other things that were going to the jump point.

While it might look like a camp was finished being set up outside the dropships. Most of the specialist were getting rest, or they were trying to get some sleep. It was not every day that you were selected to help dig out two collapsed tunnels into a long hidden SLDF base of some kind. When the sun went fully down. The first team on patrol left the Assault dropship, that was also a tug. She let out its first team to make sure people were staying away. They were a team made up of a modified Wolverine IIC, but this one had lost the Large Pulse Laser for a longer range PPC. The other team member was a Modified Royal Black Knight.

The Beagle active probe would reach out to see anyone, that might be trying to sneak a peek at the new arrivals. There were eight Black Knights and four Wolverine IICs carried by the Elephant. The Black Knight was the second most produced Mech in the history of the SLiE. The Lions could have carried more, but they were mainly carrying mining and hauling equipment for the mission. Instead of trying to spread out the support, one ship had been identified for each type of unit needing support for this mission. That had been the plan, anyway

Only two machines were out at any one time. Thanks to the data brought back by Copeland and some very good art skills? The Black Knights were made to look like battered BL-7-KNTs and not the more dangerous modified BL-6b-KNT that had never been seen in this part of space. The cover story was that they were recovered from the 3039 War. By now it was well known that the DC had been able to put back into the field some of the older designs. Then they had lost some of the mechs to the FedCom and Wolf's Dragoons.

Even then? They would not be moving that much during the daylight shifts, and they would stay undercover as much as they could at night. The only time that the full mech company would be seen at any one time? That would be if they were attacked by a combat force the duty unit could not handle. Then they would hammer anyone flat, before making a hard burn out of this system. They were also working to make sure. That they were not connected to Copeland, or even close to anyone known to be friendly to his company.

When the clock said that it was local midnight? The huge bay doors to the Lions opened, and three truck mounted teams left the ship. One team would be going to what was assumed to be the SAS's tunnels. A "couple" had set up a camp, not unlike what Jess had done when she had found them, earlier in the day. A second team when to the "main" tunnel that she had found. The third team was the cover team for the other two "working" teams. They would also be looking for more of the base. Their key job was to dig around the area Mann had reserved. Those holes had a secondary mission. They were to give a place for the other two teams to dump any spoils coming out of those other two excavations. Stealth was a keystone in the planning of this attempted recovery mission. No one thought that it would last for as long as some of the leadership wanted. But they wanted to try to keep it as quiet as they could, for as long as they could.

Mann could not sleep, and she made a few trips around to the three different teams working through the night. She spent most of the time down in the SAS bunker. She was a little disappointed, that there was not any progress in removing the blocking rock. She had to be repeatably told. That the teams needed to get lights set up first, and then they would survey the area. It would not do anyone any good, if they started to move a rock and then have more rocks fall onto their heads. It was not long before she grew tired of looking around the old living quarters, and she went back to her ship to get some sleep. She ended up sleeping for almost a dozen hours. This was also supposed to be a short but a much needed vacation for her.

 **Helios Gamma**

 **Acheron Asteroid Belt**

HH looked over to his XO, as their ship popped into a new location in what used to be Colonial owned or controlled space. It had taken them two weeks to get to this location, and it still was not where they "wanted" to be. As data comes into the Ogygia's CIC, everyone held their collective breath. Slowly data came in of their surrounding area. As those data points came in, the command center could start making out the different local rocks of this part of the asteroid belt. It took them about twenty minutes to come to the conclusion that "nothing" was nearby, that was not already mapped out by the ship.

HH looked at his second in command. "Morton, have Raptor 6 prepped. It will need to take a pilot, crew, and me. If you don't hear from me in 72 hours? Get back to Ragnar as fast as you can, and report what we found so far. And that this area is now marked unsafe, and possibly compromised to the Cylons."

Morton Deyo made a sour face. They had been over this plan many times since they had left The Sand. This contact mission should have been his job. It was not right to risk the Captain of the vessel, on a possible trap or other small group combat missions. He didn't want to argue, at least not in front of the rest of the staff, but he felt he needed to try one more time.

"Are you sure this is the right call, Captain?"

HH knew what his XO was getting at. He walked over and patted his friend on the shoulder and gave him a curt head nod. Morton gave a reply of a head nod. "Old Number 6 will be ready, when you get to the launch bay."

HH was strapped into the 1st War Raptor, and he was the third person on this craft. It had a pilot and a tail gunner already to go when the warship Captain stepped into the hatch. The pilot was a recovered POW and she watched him adjust the seat, to keep him safe. But he was also moving it so that he could see out of part of the massive glass covered cockpit. When he was ready? He gave her a nod, and the small craft floated up off the deck within a few heartbeats. It flew down the short metal tunnel into the cold of space, without a word being said to the warship or between the crew of the small craft.

The small craft cleared the Orion class warship and flew for another few minutes, before it "popped" out of the local area. Just as it left one location. It arrived at appoint in space, that was well away from the warship. It was just on the edge of the capabilities for the modified and updated old warship to "see", but only if it knew where to look.

HH waited until the pilot had finished her post jump checks, and he powered the jump engine down. He was going to be doing double duties, as the EO and passenger. The other crewmember made sure that no one came sneaking up behind on them. "Pilot, when you are ready. You may start your approach, but make sure you stick to the flight path we used on our last visit."

With his orders given or more just reinforced from what the crew had been told before they had left. HH relaxed and watched as the craft change course and it gained speed. It did not take long for the Old Number 6 to close on a large battered rock in space. The rock was huge, like a huge mountain range lost in space. It looked like a dead, blasted, hunk of rock that was as lifeless as the surrounding rocks. It looked that way, only as long as you didn't get to close to one part of the abused rock.

HH knew what and where to look, and he could see the hand of man on this rock. When the old scout craft dropped down into a crack, that was like the Grand Canyon on this body, he almost got a little vertigo. After they had traveled some distance down that valley, with huge walls of rock passing by the craft at an amazing rate. He could see at least two twin gun turrets sitting on small hills, that could have come off of an old Jupiter class Battlestar. It looked like the old Raptor could have flown down each of the twin barreled weapons. HH knew that it was only an optical illusion, and they kept flying down the stone valley.

The craft was now flying more slowly, and it made a sharp turn to "go up" a small side valley. HH could see the solid wall in front of them, as soon as they made the turn off the main valley. This was where he saw the first change from his last visit. He knew that there were gun turrets in this location, but they should have been the small types of KEWs. Ones that could have been taken from some old warship and used to counter any Raider, Viper, or other small craft from using this landing bay and natural choke point.

What greeted HH today. It was a pair of twin mounted cannons that HH thought might have come off of a Valkyrie class warship. This type of combination cannon and missile launchers were kind of unique to that class of warship. "Okay, that is new. Pilot send the message."

The pilot was looking wide eyed at the four heavy guns. Then she looked over to a pair of "rocks" to each side of the heavy cannons, that looked to be hiding CIWS weapons. It was with shaking hands, that she hit the button to transmit a set of coded "beeps" to someone behind those guns. She was willing to wait, as long as those guns didn't fire at her.

It seemed like time was dragging by, before the two twin heavy weapons mounts started to slide to one side. Soon the twin barrels super elevated, so that the Raptor was not in their line of fire. With the weapons not threatening them, the small craft slowly started to advance.

HH had to tap and point off to one side of the craft as they closed on the stone cliff, that mounted the heavy weapons. There was a massive opening that was hidden by a rock overhang, that was the size of a good sized Battlestar. It was the mouth of a landing bay that had supported a huge mining operation before the 1st Cylon war.

It had been surveyed after the war, but it had been found not to be worth the effort to clean up, repair, and then bring back into production. Then it had been forgotten about in all of the rebuilding, that was required after that long and bloody war. That is, it was forgotten about by everyone but one small group of humans. They had no problem doing some repairing and a lot of clean up, so that they could use the place.

Tomas Fraser watched as an old design, but fresh-looking Raptor was deposited off a small landing turn table into the main "bay" of his command. Only about half a dozen groups, outside of those under his direct orders knew about this place. He would have preferred that fewer people knew about this place, but there were so few humans left. That he felt it was not that much of a risk with the current amount of people that knew how to get here.

He had to fight down a slight smile, as a man, that he recognized, as the commander of the only warship that was known to still be under the command of humans and not Cylons exited the old warbird and looked around. Tomas schooled his features and he waited for the Captain to be brought to him. Tomas was wondering what he would think, of what he was going to be shown.

HH exited the craft and looked around the large open space. As he turned, he could see the large and heavy steel doors that was the only hint that this at one time was a major space port. HH could see 6 other and larger cargo or other spaceships spread out in the landing and loading area. He was mentally matching each craft with ones he had seen before. He was not sure, but he thought about half of them were different.

HH waved for his Raptor team to stay in the craft, when he saw two people come over with pistols in low military thigh holsters. This should be his "escort" to see the boss. HH was subject to a very detailed but fast security pat down, that left him light his holdout pistol and pocketknife. It would have been strange if he had not been packing, even before the Cylon attack. It was a long walk to see the Boss. HH made sure to make mental notes of anything that had changed or items that might be useful to help his new mission.

HH had an idea of how big Momus base was, but after so long in his small ship. It felt like he had almost circled the asteroid after only a few minutes of walking. He was just about to ask his escort where they were going. When they stopped at a hatch that was just like the other fifty, they had already passed. One of the twin escorts rapped on the door, and it opened before anyone could have replied to the knock.

HH entered the room, and he quickly knew that he had not been in it before today. He knew that he had been in a room like this before, but he could not remember where. It was the windows behind the desk, that was keying off something in the back of his mind. He was lost in thought, and he almost did not catch what the other man in the room said and he recovered very quickly. "Good to see you, Boss Fraser. Looks like you did some scavenging since my last visit. Where did you get those additional heavy weapons at The Wall?"

Tomas gave a snort that almost made him laugh out loud. "Your one to talk. Where did you get the old Raptor? And do you still have your pocket Battlestar?"

HH took a seat and let a smile come to his face. "I found a few odds and ends after we last stopped by. And yes, I still have my girl. Morton is waiting on the edge of the Belt. I would like to send a message from my bird to bring him over. I have some things we might be able to trade."

Tomas rocked back into his chair and a tooth filled smile split his face. "I like trade. Yes, you can bring Ogygia in. You remember the rules?"

HH gave a nod of his head, and then reached into his inside pocket for the small device resting there. He only needed to click it twice and wait for three clicks to come back. Within a minute and a half, a highly encoded message was sent from the old Raptor to a certain spot in space. When HH looked up from his device, he noticed that Boss Fraser was watching him very closely. HH could read the question in those eyes.

"They should be here in a few hours. I came ahead to make sure you all were still here, and to work on this deal."

Tomas let the smile fall off his face. "How many people are you going to want to come over and stretch their legs." Having enough O2 and at the same time having room to at least swing a cat, was very hard to find. Anyone who landed on this rock would have to pay a tax, to use that air and that living space.

HH let the corners of his mouth drop just a few millimeters, and he pitched his voice very low. "Before we get to that. I need to ask a favor."

Tomas went on guard and kept his face very still. Asking for a favor in this day and age was very risky, for both parties involved. HH saw the face change on the crime boss, and he felt his heart starting to race. "What do you mean, Captain?" The boss let a dangerous edge come into his voice.

HH heard the tone, and he very slowly reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a thin stack of cut cornered papers and pass them over to the commander of this outpost. He let the pages fall onto the desktop of the man in charge of Momus base. It was with a side long look that Thomas reached out and took the pages with faces printed on them.

For the next few minutes, the two men talked about what those pages meant. HH gave more information to this man, than he had given to the master of the Sands. He told the crime boss all of the information they had on the human form Cylons and how they could be downloaded into new bodies. It had taken the most time to explain, that those few models of human forms would take all of their memories back with them when they got those new bodies. What Tomas Fraser did with this information, was not HH's concern.

What did HH get for this information? The base's commander ordered that HH and his crew would have free rein of the station, without paying the air tax. When he was done. Boss Fraser looked back over to the maybe CI man.

"It is not often that I get surprised like this Captain. I thank you for your information. If you don't mind, I would like to change the subject." Tomas was rewarded with a slight bow from the seated man. "Thank you. Captain Hewitt, what do you think about my new office?"

HH was blinking in surprise, but he concealed this reaction by making a show of looking around the large room. It was not that much different in how it was decorated, but it was at least 4 times as large as the last office he had met this man in.

"It's a lot bigger, but it looks like you're going to need a while to decorate it. That is unless you have a box store the Cylons don't have under guard?" HH knew he was missing something, and he went on edge.

Tomas smiled and rose from his chair, and as he walked over to the dark row of "windows" He sent one side long look to the other man. After he walked the few steps, he waved for the other man to join him. When HH joined the pirate commander, he watched as a few buttons were selected at the base of one of the dark windows. It was only due to HH's training that he didn't ask any questions while he stood there.

Slowly lights mounted behind the glass started to glow and get brighter as they warmed up. As they warmed up, HH was able to see better what had been hidden in the dark behind the clear window glass. It was a rift or very narrow valley, that looked to have been covered over with metal plates and wired for power. As HH looked around the valley, he could see the window let him look down deep into the covered area. He saw that the "floor" was flat and paved with what looked like the same material that was used at planet side space ports.

It was an impressive covered landing pad. HH thought that it must have been used to bring in the massive mining equipment needed to first set up this base. As more lights came up to full power, HH saw two wrecked ships on the landing area below him. It took him more than a few seconds to realize that they were parts of a Valkyrie class Battlestar. His head whipped around without him wanting it to, but at least he did not open his mouth.

For once Boss Fraser could not keep his normal game face on. "We found the nose from Yashuman over Caprica. That is where we got those new cannons you saw, and a few other things. The engine block? We have no idea what ship it came off of, but it was on a ballistic orbit not far from the belt. It took a lot of work to get them here.

HH now had his feet under him. "Well that explains how you were able to hide so many ships, when the Colonial Navy spent months looking for them a few years ago. But why are you showing me this?"

Tomas smiled, but he didn't look at the other man. "I know you won't give me that ship, in exchange for living here. To put it bluntly, I need your ship, captain. What I propose is a trade. My people found an electronic repair ship. Somehow all of the air locks opened and killed the crew. I can get it here. But it is going to take a long time, and it most likely will not be able to do its job properly after I get it here. If you can get it here? I will use this bay, my people, and the parts from those hulks to repair your ship. It is not a repair bay or slip, but we can make it work to do some level of an overhaul on your girl."

Nothing was agreed to full in that meeting. HH and Tomas had many meetings that slowly grew in number of attendees. More details were worked out to support this mission. You would think that dealing with criminals, that it would have been easy to make a deal with them. As it turns out, they used more lawyers than even your average large group of politicians. It took three days of solid work to get everything worked out. One of the keys, was that Tomas made sure to have one of his cargo shuttles added to the mission with a hand-picked crew. They were to make sure he got his recovered ship from HH.

One week after the agreement had been worked out between the one-time crime boss and the undercover CI captain. HH was finally able to start to relax, as he saw the huge floating rock come into view on the screen mounted in his command center. The whole trip had been uneventful. They had not even seen any Cylons, during the whole operation. It had been stressful for the crew and for the old warship, thinking that a Cylon Basestar was going to jump in near them at any second. Towing something like this also had used a lot of fuel and stressed the already over used engines on the warship.

HH was ready to get this job done. There were two main reasons that he had accepted this mission. One was that his ship needed some attention that Ragnar could not fix while they were floating inside that envelope of that gas giant. Besides, they hadn't had the parts or the trained personnel to do that kind of work. The other reason was his adjusted mission statement. The flattop style electronic repair ship would help this group of survivors to not only survive, but maybe they would be able to help others.

Boss Fraser had told HH a little secret. This base had never been a major support base for the pirates. It had only been mainly used to make cheap ammunition, sometimes to hide from the Colonial Navy and as a storage point. Now they needed to scrape together whatever they could find to not only support the base, and any ships that were now using it. They needed that vessel to help keep the base capable of supporting life.

HH did not start breathing again, until a section of the rock started to move below his ship. Until it had started to move, it had just looked like any other part of the asteroid gliding below them. HH would have to pull the second ship into the narrow valley, and all the way down to the floor. There was nothing that HH could do, it was up to his crew. He was very relieved again, but this time it was when he saw the "roof" starting to close over the top of his ship.

Three weeks later the Orion class warship was rising out of the camouflaged valley/repair area. It had been a very busy few weeks, for the crew of the warship and support members from the pirate base. HH's crew had helped with the repairs. Sometimes they were the teachers, but a lot of the times they were the students as they worked together. Was the repair work as good and as complete as a regular Colonial drydock? For the most part no, but it was better than anything else the warship had access to currently.

The warship's crew had help with some training on the recovered ship when they were not working on the warship. The electronics repair ship had even been able to help with the repairs on the warship, after the first week of its landing on the special made support structure. The recovered ship was soon focused on three main projects, beside general support to the base.

One project was additions to the number of both algae vats and real food production labs the base had in operation. The second was laying the groundwork for making lightening javelin MK1 anti-Raider missiles. They were to be not only fitted to all of the craft working out of this base, but they were also to be loaded into homemade box launchers as a counter Raider/Heavy Raider battery. The third area, that the ship was going to support, was to greatly expand the bases ability to produce nuclear weapons. That the base could even make one of those weapons had come as a shock to HH. That it was turning out one or two every year had left him gob smacked. They were going to make as many as they could, thanks to an old 1st Cylon war fission/breeder reactor the base had been built with. This rock had a lot of radioactive ores, as well as a nice seam of Tylium they could access.

HH's additional "payment" for helping recover the repair ship and helping get it ready to support those other missions, had been a full load of fuel, and full bunkers of heavy coil gun ammunitions. HH had traded a few of his Nike-Ajax missiles, along with a "pallet of a dozen lightening javelins for 3 nuclear warheads for the Nike Ajaxs missiles in his silos. Some seeds and help in the grow rooms, had gotten him an intel dump from the pirates. His staff had already been surprised by the amount of data that they were having to go through for a few packages of seeds.

HH was looking at the data on Canceron. The pirates had run three missions to the planet's surface already. They had dropped off some weapons and pulled out several dozen people that they could find. There seemed to be a whole lot of people that had been hiding in small groups around that water rich world. After they finished this run. HH knew that all of this data was going to be very helpful for the people supporting the rebuilding of Ragnar. He puts the data aside and turns out the light on his desk. It was late and his wife was already asleep.

 **Notes:**

 **Acheron Asteroid Belt, Momus base.** Commander (Boss) Tomas Fraser. 6 x Jupiter turrets, 2 twin Valkyrie turrets, many CIWS. Pallet launcher for Lightening-Javelin 2x12 launcher.

 **The now modified Colonial ship Zephyr**. 4000 foot long ship, 8 drop collars, armed with 5 LRMx20, 10 Medium lasers, and 6 ER Large lasers. All of those weapons had been pulled off of recovered wrecks. 24 LAMS locations. 12 Class 5 HODs were added just before this mission. Hard points being fabricated to mount recovered capital weapons of autocannon and missile types. Her power rooms cannot generate the needed power for capital Gauss or other energy weapons. Those capital weapons will be mounted on the Nose, FL/FR, AL/ AR, and Aft.

 **Ground Team for Jess's toy box.** Elephant with 8 modified Royal Black Knights and 4 modified Wolverine IICs. Both mechs look like "normal" Inner Sphere versions of those machines. 2 Long range Shuttles (the other 2 small craft bays are empty. They might be needed for something else. 2,100tons of empty cargo bays with two doors. 8 heavy mech recovering trucks, they will have to move stuff from the dig sites to the dropships. 4 platoons worth of workers. K1 is the HQ and to keep eyes out of the other dropships. The Cargo King is for extra cargo pulled from the ground or what can be bought locally and brought back to New Circe. The Lions are each carrying 8 workmechs, 12 light trucks of different types and different tools for the mission.


	44. Chapter 44 7 March 3049

**Chapter 44**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **7 March 3049**

 **New Circe.**

Admiral Franks was tired; after all he was pushing 90 years old as of this month. This meeting was not at "The Station", but at the Lord Protectors main briefing room in the government building that dominated the city's skyline. This meeting had been on the books for a few weeks, and it could not be moved or otherwise shifted around. The head of the SLDF Navy had only been in this solar system for a few days, when he was sent the message that he was needed and why. That didn't mean, that he was looking forward to having to attend this meeting or others like it. Ones that he knew deep in his soul were on the horizon.

This was another one of those meetings. That only the who's who of New Circe would be attending, even if they were not wanted by the other attendees. Admiral Franks knew it was going to be several hours of his life, that he was never going to get back. When he made eye contact with the Lord Protector, from across the table. She gave him a slight nod to start the meeting. One part of his mind noted that she had "her work face" on, and that might not be a bad sign.

Admiral Franks nodded back, and he put on his briefing face. He hit the button to start this epic scale dog and pony slide show. "We have had a busy three weeks. The Victorian's have not been totally processed out of the two "General" class dropships. But the rest of the ships have been emptied of recovered people and cargos. They are making headway, but we were able to pull almost 25 percent more of that planet's scattered population, than had been planned for when they first left on this mission. We have deployed a tri mix of security personnel to that area, to help the new people get settled in. They are a mix of Victorians who have been here for a while, Colonials, and some of our law enforcement staff. We were able to put some of the hard-won lessons, that we learned with the Colonials to good use. As you can see by the slides. All of the animals have been removed from the ships, and all the cargo with them. They think that in another month, the last two ships will be emptied. And after another month or so? We will be ready for reassignment of our law enforcement personnel back to their normal law enforcement duties here and in the city state. Then we can start the next phase of operations."

With a nod to a woman, that was three seats down from him. She was the head of the construction and recovery teams that had been on his mission. She only folded her arms on the tabletop before she started to talk. "We have off loaded all the salvage that came from Admiral Frank's mission. We have been sorting it out on three of our back up space fields, to keep our main fields focused on current operations. But with all of the hands we have been able to throw at it? The inventory has gone by quickly. We even had to use the new Smelter Hephaestus at a full load, for the first time and I see needing it for a few more times to keep up with our ground teams."

She was now beaming a smile, like a cat that had the prize parakeet in its mouth. It was taking a while for everyone to get use to the new smelter and its massive capabilities. The mines were still wasting time reducing the ores to the same old size, in the old ways. This was mainly due to old habits, and because that was how the mine's production lines were set up. The mines were getting better, but they were not there yet to use the new smelter to its maximum effectiveness.

She kept talking as everyone thought about that new device attached to the great station over their heads. "We are setting aside any Colonial or Cylon made weapons, ammunition, and missiles that were pulled off the planet. We have them, along with the liners jump drives in dedicated warehouses. They were able to fill the melting pot on Hephaestus with a lot of stuff that was a little hot, radioactively speaking that was not recoverable. We already have fired up the jump engines to idle. And faster than a Viper, it was done with the 5 extra jump drives. Now we know that they were pulling them out with the right stuffs still attached. That was the key in getting the jump engines tested."

Jennifer Vaun looked to a different person at the table, and she made eye contact with a raised eyebrow. "How did that other mission turn out? They were not due back for four to six more months. I was extremely surprised when I got a message that they were almost home."

The other mission to the Inner Sphere had been launched before Captain Copeland had been pulled out of retirement. They had been working under the complete protocols on this one mission, and they were not doing anything else but that one mission. As far as anyone in the Inner sphere knew, they were just another set of traders. It was just unfortunate that this mission had a negative impact on what ships could support Copeland's mission. This meeting was going to release a lot of once classified data to a very broad audience.

The person the Lord Protector was looking at was the head of the SLIC. He took the look and understood its meaning. He might not agree with the idea of releasing that information to anyone outside those who were involved in the mission, but she was the boss. "Most of the crew, that lived from that wrecked Surveyor class Jumpship stayed here in the New Circe system. The Star Lord we sent was carrying one liner, a recovered ex Combine flagged Achilles assault dropship, a Union and a mix of Mammoth and Mule class cargo dropships. As promised, they went straight to Kowloon. They were able to get a lot of major machining tools to help increase our total industrial output. The protocols were maintained, and no issues were reported or turned up by the post mission interviewers." This last statement made for some low rumblings to cross the room.

SLIC was not going to let this stop him. "The cost of those tools and the mission overall, was more than we had planned for. But then again. They filled the large cargo ships to the deck heads with what we needed. We think that the local government might have diverted or outright stolen the equipment that we picked up, from other contracts. How they got what they sold us, is not an issue for our people. After all it is not the first time, that we have bought stolen goods. Query Affirmative. They had to stop a few places to keep their food and water supply above emergency levels, due to the shortage of shipping space. The contact that was sent on this mission, used her pull to get the Kawloon leadership to extend "a loan" to this "Sale" company. There was not enough money to pay the loan off before they left. I think we need to prep one of the other "Projects" that we still have for Copelands next run. If the loan defaults it is going to make people look closer at what happen to that company, what was bought by them, and were the stuff ended up."

An always expanding section of the local area was being searched, after the Caspar had "found" the Shaky system. They had looked at every star around, which did not have a detailed survey done to it in the last ten years. They had not found anything close by, or deeper/closer to Cylon patrolled space. But when they went closer to the Inner Sphere? They had found a lot more of the lost or forgotten items over a few hundred years of human space exploration.

All of them would take work to be worth anything, so they had been labeled projects and put in a stable orbit. That work would only be done, if other things were done first, that were closer to what home currently needed. Those finds ranged from a single dropship and the odd jumpships, to a Capellan Confederation Flagged Vincent class corvette, and what was left of a Carson Class Destroyer. Teams were still out looking for anything that was useful, or just to keep it away from the Cylons and using them like breadcrumbs leading them closer to the Inner Sphere. That last mission statement had been added recently for an undisclosed reason.

The head of SLIC waited for almost a full minute. Then when no one asked any questions, he continued with his prepared briefing. "We have not even deployed all of the new machine tools out of Bay 2 on the Mammoth, much less even looked at getting into Bay 3 of that cargo ship. Still we already have been able to stop the hand fitting of about 95 percent of the items coming out of three of our second line production facilities."

He did not have to say that the prime facilities? Those were the Star league era factories that they had just been able to break down and pack down into dropships before they had been overrun by the rest of the clans. "This upgrade was done without a major slowdown in weapons production. In a few days. We should start seeing an uptick in the output downstream of those fixes, soon. Right now? The older and now displaced machines are being pushed out as upgrades, to our third-tier shops. I think that in a few months' …..tops? All of the second line shops will be updated, and maybe we will be able to update or even expand the third level shops around the planet. There are no plans to push updated equipment to the bottom tier of support manufacturing like cargo trucks, parts shops, and kitchen stoves makers." He had a smile, as he made a joke. It fell very flat in this room, even the people in this room knew that some of those lower tier shops were making useful weapons like the hand-built Locust IIC.

The Lord Protector did not have to say it, but over 50 percent of all of the top of the line combat equipment that was going into the defense of this planet? It was coming out of what were called, second tier manufactures sites. One of those Second Tier's factories was making all of the Avar Omni fighters over in the Colonial City State.

The Lord Protector let the SLIC commander off the hook. "At this point and time. I do not want an interruption in production, so do not rush the updating. Query Affirmative. I also agree about sending a project back with Commodore Copeland." She stopped talking and then let out a little bit of breath that was a sigh. "I think that I will jump the line and inform the group, to let them know what is needed. I have signed the paperwork, and it will be sent out for the evening news cycle. I do not think we can expect much more support to come this soon from our factories or the MMM contact. Query Affirmative."

Those were a pair of bombs sentences that she dropped, and it caused every eye to be looking at her. She had been keeping this very next bit of information close hold, for some time, and she knew what all the hints coming out of her office had been saying. None of those rumor releases were connected to this meeting, and that kind of surprise was rare. She smiled at the group. It made her feel good, to pull one over on most of the people in this room. If you were a little unpredictable, sometimes? That just made negotiations better, for her. Now she was going to drop another bomb on them.

"As some of you might know. We have been very short military grade dropships. We could have made more, but it had never made much sense to the leadership. We had planned to be in a defensive war when we were found again. That has changed, so I have authorized the 331st Royal Battle Mech Division to start standing up a 4th Battlemech Brigade." The room was quiet as a tomb, as they waited for what was coming.

She let a smile come to her face. "When it is fully deployed from the mother unit. It will be reflagged as the 205 Independent Royal Assault Mech Brigade. It will not be quick. But with a fully functional Lee, Colossus, another Lion, and another Confederate classes of dropships? I think that they already have a good start on their lift ability. I plan for this unit to be kept on this planet, and it will have our oldest equipment. It will only deploy off planet if it has truly hit the fan, or the senior military leaders find a mission for them. Query Affirmative. I will not tell the personnel department how to man this unit, and I will not tell the ground force commander how to use this unit. Those are just my private thoughts."

Right up until she had started talking, that had been the mission for the 3313th Mech Brigade. It had always been the one with the oldest hammy down equipment of the Royal Division. Most of the time when the 3313rd got something new, something old went right into the cache site or down to the 2nd Homeland defense BDE. This must have been going through the minds of one of the political people seated to one side of the meeting.

The 50ish year old man started talking out loud, and once he heard his voice he just kept going. "How are we going to be manning another full Mech Brigade? And are you going to authorize a pull from the Cache bunker?"

There had never been a 4th mech BDE in the 331st in the history of both Star League and clan. It was so far out of anyone's experience, that it was hard to get your brain wrapped around it. Some people just could not think outside of the box, and that was after she suggested that the unit would be reflagged to a unit, that had died during the escape from clan space.

The head of all ground forces in the SLDF, was just as floored as the rest of the people in the room. He did have the advantage that he had smart people working for him, who could think out of the box every day. He had sent a plan to the Lord Protector about a month ago, about expanding the ground forces by a full Battlemech Brigade.

His voice cut through the other mans before he could get a full head of steam. "We will use a step process and grow it as slowly as we need for pilots and mechs. We picked up two companies of very high-end Royal use only Mechs, in the Shaky system. We will use that as a starting point, right off the bat for the new unit. It is already a good mix of machines. We do not want them to end up with it heavy on one end or have them outnumbered in the other weight classes. I will get around to answering how can we man it with equipment in a minute? When you think of the number of crews coming off of those Colonial spaceships and fighters, that is a lot of population. But what you are forgetting, is that both the Colonials and the Victorians have a problem with mechs right now. Even when we start using the Colonial style VR for training up the Victorian volunteers, it will take some time to fill mech piloting slots. It will take some time to get some of the recovered Cylon POWs finished with their training. This is not something we will do quickly."

He turned to look at several people in turn, the ones that he knew were ground centric in thinking. "We did cut down on the number of Mechs that we were building as new machines, but we have been producing updated spare parts at a steady rate. That is not counting what the city state has been using to update many of the machines we have in the storage cache. We have still been making a few brand new built Pulverizer II Omnis, a lot of Mercury III and Sling II Omnis, a few Wolverine IIIs Omnis, about the same number of Riflemen IIIs Omnis, and even a few of the new 75ton Fjellhas. Those are the machines that are coming off the lines, at about one or two a week rate. That does not count things like the Locust IICs. We have never fully stopped production. We have only slowed them down, to use key resources in other areas of our defense plan."

The general rocked back in his chair. "That has been pushing some of the Golden Century machines to 3rd Heard, at about a company at a time. The old Royal designs have not been going into a mothball cycle and then into the Cache. They have been held in reserve, for quick call up at depot level maintenance sites around the dispersed bases on the planet. That has been why we have been able to replace combat losses so quickly. That would give us at least another battalion, to use as a core for the new unit. Now those new parts can be used to finish upgrading all of the 2nd To None to counter Clan level tech. And then start on Third Heard to bring them up to speed on the same level of equipment. This will give us a large cache of supplies and parts for the new unit to draw on. Now if we do have an increase in output of the core and secondary or even smaller factories in the near future? The 205th Independent Royal Assault will quickly have better mechs than the home defense units."

The head of the ground forces was thinking as fast as he could. "As to how to man it? The Colonials, Cylons, and Victorians already are filling in as tank crews, aerofighters, Artillery tube jockeys, and in Infantry units in our ground division and home defense units. This gives us a ready pool of "our" people in those jobs, which we can retest to see if they can fill the empty mech seats. I am not saying it will be quick. And I think we could even temporarily add tanks and other types of units, to fill out this new order of battle in the short term. Query Affirmative. That does not even count the new power armor that should start to deploy in a few months."

The ground force commander turned in his chair, to look at the leader and tilted his head at her. He wanted to see if that was the outline of the plan that she was talking about. He also wanted to know if the idea about the new PA(L) was workable or not. They had only made 10 of those downgraded suits in January. Those test suits had led the way for them to make 15 more in February, and by the end of March, 15 more of the suits would be turned over for combat use. He was rewarded with a nod and a smile from the supreme leader of his people.

While she had the advantage? She turned to the head of "The Station" and her mistress. Jennifer let the smile fall off her face. "How is that old Olympus doing? Did the test jumps damage the hull, repair bays, or the jump engine?"

The head of the station was currently Commodore Hallis. She was wearing two hats, and the newest one oversaw the massive station in orbit around the planet. She had a strong background in supply and support. Now she was the lead "Cat" herder on the Station. Many didn't know if this was a promotion or a demotion for her.

"Lord Protector. The vessel made it to its target spot, at least within about 500 KMs of where we told the crew to place her. We completed all of the inspections that we can think of, and it is fully functional. I even have all three of the repair bays booked for the next few months, and I moved the first ship into the main bay about 72 hours after she showed up. It is one of the smaller Colonial ships, which kept getting bumped from the other slips. My staff hopes to have the two smaller bays filled in a few days or a little later."

She stopped talking for a few seconds, and then looked levelly at Admiral Franks. "I do not want anyone to get the wrong ideas. I can really use those three repair bays, to get rid of my backlog of repairs and ship's maintenance that are on my books. I also know how much planning it takes to get one of the projects out of the way of the Cylons patrols. I have a report from the commander of that station or ship, and I agree with it. Normally a station would be given a name based around the system name or what it might be closest to in orbit. That does not work for us, for a number of reasons. It was voted on by the current crew, that they would like the name of the vessel to be called SLS Lyssa. This is not a station, but a mobile vessel or ship. As a mobile ship? It should fall under command of the SLDF Navy. Query Affirmative. I think we can work out and agreeable sharing arrangement, between our two services on the use of the bays. Query Affirmative. I think we can use how the SLDF Navy handled the Newgrange class ship as a measuring stick."

Admiral Franks was surprised to hear this statement. His staff had been working on a plan to take control of the mobile Olympus station for a few weeks. They were just waiting to see, if the "Lyssa" had survived the interstellar move or not. Now it looked like, he was not going to have that big of a dogfight on his hands. He was positive that Hallis would have a list of items she wanted in return for working with him. Then again? He was willing to give up a lot, to have something like this "Lyssa" under his command. His staff had come up with a huge list of uses that it could be put to, that would be a major positive for his office.

"I think our staffs can work out the details, and I was thinking along those lines already. That is if she survived the trip. It would seem that the SLS Lyssa, the goddess of the crazy or insane, is functional as a warship or as a support ship."

Jenifer looked over the meeting, and then gave a nod to Admiral Franks. She set up a little straighter in the chair. "That is between both of your departments to work out. Query Affirmative. We have another mission I want to talk about. It is time for a meeting with our old "friends". It is time for The Pilgrimage."

Jenifer had a slight smile on her face. But in her head? Her mind was laughing. " _I wonder if some of these people are going to need a concussion test tonight, after all of the head snaps that I have been giving them._ "

The meeting went on for almost two hours more, and the only thing that was of any importance that was covered? It was the approval for the next resupply mission to go back to the Inner Sphere, but a date was not set. By the time the meeting was over? The word had leaked already about the temporary expansion of the 331st to 5 brigades. It was met by a tidal wave of support from the surveyed people as it was reported on the nightly news.

Francis Callahan threw his cooling vest onto a nearby chair. This was one of three offices that he used as the CEO of Callahan Munitions. He had a large formal office in McEvedy City and a matching one in the City State. This one was near a satellite production area, that at one time had been the star and the heart of the company that carried his family's name. It had made most of the first-generation Gauss rifles and about 40 percent of the second-generation Gauss rifles, that were found on New Circe. It also had been where the first sells motto of "We can blow your mech's head clean off" had started. It had been replaced with an image of the founders Galahad with a statement in blood red letters. "I know what you're thinking, punk. Did I fire eight rounds or only seven?"

Francis had just gotten done spending some time at the range in that same Galahad 2D, that was used to make that image. It had been in his family since the founding of this planet. It had been given to his descendants, after decades of service and the founding of a needed industry. The story goes that he was prouder of setting up that first factory than getting his blood name. During an interview about those early days he was quoted as saying. "Never rated gauss-rifles much before, but that goddamn thing nearly blew my mech's head clean-off with me in it!"

Roger Callahan had been given the Galahad after he had been blown out of his Royal Wolverine II during the Trial of Annihilation by a Gauss Rifle, and he was just lucky enough to be on the right hospital ship to make it out of clan space. Funds to maintain it had come from his family, and it was better than when it had come off the production lines of Mitchell Vehicles in the 2770s. Every time he needed to calm down, he would take the machine out and put some rounds down range.

As Francis looked around and he found that he was only a little calmer, but he was far from being called anything like calm. What had caused him to become so agitated? It was a trivid on this computer. It was a detailed report about the newest battlemech for the SLDF ground command. Before he retakes his seat, he looks over at an image of what his company had put together for that same contract. He had been so sure that his design was going to win, that he had ordered a prototype built out of company funds.

He had "known" that the SLDF was going to be worried about cost, and they already had the massive Pulverizer II omni in production. The primary anti-mech variant of the Pulverizer II Assault carries two LRPPC's and two Gauss Rifles, with the latter made by Callahan's factories. The LRPPC puts out a lot of waste heat, so the Gauss rifles pair nicely with them. They also were almost as long range and punchy as an LRPPC, but much more heatsink friendly. He had been expecting guaranteed sales of enough Gauss Rifles to equip _hundreds_ of Pulverizer II's entering service over the next few years and the replacement weapons they would need. On releasing of the planned production of that mech. He had taken a loan to make expansions to almost double the production rate of second-generation Gauss Rifles.

His machine was going to be the perfect complement to that massive combat machine. It was going to be 100tons, but low slung compared to the Pulverizer. He had started with the King Crab as the base of the design. But they had added the best pair of Gauss Rifles made, along with a pair of second-generation Large bore pulse lasers, and they were backed up by clan tech LRM and SRM streak launchers. To get all of that firepower and ammunition into that small of a frame, was by adding the most top of the line extra light engine. At under 30 million per unit, he thought that he had the contract in the bag. Then came the Colonials, and everything was flushed right out of the airlock.

The SLDF had shifted from wanting a new assault mech, to wanting alot more aerospace Fighters. That major cut into mech production had hurt. He was out the not small cost of making the prototype, and he had been anticipating that they were going to win the contract. So, he had ordered the setting up of a production line for the new keystone product of the company. Now he had to pay to refit that production line back into production of spare parts and other smaller weapons, for the SLDF and not a 100ton assault mech. Then they had been hit again. He had been told that due to the senior leaders not wanting to make any more mechs or make them in such low numbers. That it looked like they were not going to make any more Gauss Rifles for them in the near future. That was his company's bread and butter, and it had been that way forever. Even the flamer they were building for the Mercury III were not in high demand. They just were not as useful against metal Centurions as they were against "normal" humans.

Those were three major hits to his company's bottom line, that had pushed his company deep into the red. The Headhunter line was now back into production of items for the SLDF, but even at this rate. It was going to take years for him to recoup the losses of refurbishing that line back into something useful. Then MCMI had won the contract for the development of the new high rate of fire class 5 cannons, and his stock price took another hard hit.

He had not been even trying for that project. He had jumped into bed with the Colonials and SLDF to come up with a shotgun Gauss Rifle. That was not as nice sounding as Hyper Assault Gauss weapon. But if it sounds like a duck and walks like a duck? He knew that it had annoyed the Frak out of NCMI when his company had been selected to start making a prototype. Then word had come down, that the HAG project was getting cut back to barely even to be called life support level. The company would still be getting some income, but 20% off of 10 paychecks was not 20% out of 200 paychecks plus other charges that they could get.

He and his company were now drowning in debt. He even thought that he was going to have to sell the Headhunter to the SLDF military, at a loss for what even the parts were worth. All so he could get the capital he needed to get a contract with the Colonials. It was just to build MANPAD SRM Launchers and two different types of warheads for those weapons. They were not even using "normal" launchers that he had made for decades. They had bought some from Copeland's supply runs, and that was going to be the base for the new weapons. It silently galled him that they were a lot better than the same SRM launchers he had been building for a hundred years.

He had been so distracted by these events. That he had not noticed someone buying up his company's now much lower stock price paper. He had not been that concerned at that lower price, because he knew it was artificially low due to some short-term issues. Besides, he knew that 50.1% of the voting stock was owned by people that shared his last name. He had used the slight increase in stock prices, to get a low interest loan to get the new project off the ground. He had not like making infantry weapons, not when he thought that only Mechs were real weapons on today's battlefield. Still he needed to pay the bills.

He had been in his "Main" office having a few drinks with the key leadership of the company when the CFO brought up a message from some lawyer. It was a legal notice, that said a person now owned a little over 10 percent of the voting stock. That large of a block owned by one person was a major shift in the power structure of his company. Francis had at first not recognized the name that was given, even after someone had connected all of the dots for him. He still had not fully understood what had happened to his company. Now he had some Navy arsehole buying major blocks into the firm. As of today? That Navy puke owned or controlled the voting rights to over 15 percent of the stock for the whole company. He had spent a lot of his own money to find out why this Robert Copeland wanted with owning that much of "his" company.

Francis again slammed his fist on the desktop, and he had to fight to get himself back under control. After a few minutes of deep breathing. He hit play on the video, and he pulled up the public data file on the 75ton Fjellhas. He was not that impressed with the base machine and the prime model. The prime was packing a 12 rack of missile launchers on it's shoulders, just like the old Catapult. The "new" thing was that they could fire Lightning-Javelins or the new Thunder-Javelin missiles, that were just now coming into Full rate production. One arm was packing a LB-X UAC in one arm, and a second-generation medium pulse laser in the other. It also had a head mounted laser anti-missile system to round out the maximum amount of armor that you could put on a chassis that size.

None of those systems were unexpected. Even the NCMI Nokia CRN 131 communications system and Omni Sure Track and Shoot 4Targeting & Tracking System, were known products. Both had been used for some time in refitting the SLDF mechs. Then his eyes went back to the mech's weapons images, and he did not recognize some of it. It took him looking deeper into the data packets, to find out what was mounted in the center torso of the 75ton machine.

He gave a snort and spoke out loud. "I bet that was why they chose this underweight piece of junk."

He liked mech scale weapons and he went to the annex in the report, and he reviewed this new to him weapon stats. It was a captured 30mm Cylon KEWs, that had been pulled from the recovered Raiders and Heavy Raiders. He reluctantly had to admit that it would be a very effective counter Centurion weapon. Best of all? The SLDF had uncounted thousands of those weapons and ammo mass that was equal to a dropship. And all of it was just sitting in storage. The SLDF could fit, repair, train, and load that weapon more or less free of charge. That was going to give the active and training units a huge life cycle savings, when they used live weapons.

He makes a note to see about making light vehicles and matching this weapon to it. He thought that the 4x4s could also pack one of the captured Cylon KEWs. He knew that his company had the plans and tooling set up for the Hilux trucks. They just would have to get the military on board to start making them. It would be a cheap and easy weapons system, and it would make it harder for the Centurions to catch the PBIs. Then again, were PBIs worth that effort? He puts a big red question mark by the note. He sent the note to the people who would put some brain power on the task, and then see if the SLDF or Colonials were interested in something like that.

 **Notes** :

 **Hilux/Jeep gun truck**. 4x4, no armor and treat the 30mm KEWs like Battletech Heavy Machine Guns, but with the range of standard MG's (The Colonials/Cylons have better ballistics).

 **Thunder-Javelin missiles.** These are normally rated in classes of 5, 10, 15, and 20. Besides the heavy warhead of the Thunder family. They are homing headhunter weapons with a prototype Listen Kill capability.

 **Headhunter class Mech:** low slung mech that is based off the King Crab, but not fitted for Omni tech. 100tons with Max Clan FF grade armor, 2 Gauss Rifles, 2 Large Pulse lasers, LRM 15, streak SRM 4, and a Clan tech 300XL.

 **Callahan Munitions.** Best known for making Gauss Rifles for generations, like the ones mounted on the Pulverizer II. The current unofficial motto is "I know what you're thinking, punk. Did I fire eight rounds or only seven?" and "Our product can blow a mech's head clean off." Current CEO Francis Harold Callahan, and he is a mech jock. He has pushed mech tactics above everything else that the old company makes.

 **Number of Weasels Light battle armor.** Jan 10, Feb 15, Mar 15, May 15, June 15, July 15, Aug 15, Sep 20, Oct 30, Nov 40 and Dec will see 50 new suits made. After Dec 3049 each month will see 50 more suits and repair parts released to the military.

 **Fjelhas 75ton Omni mech.** Below are the base and prime models. They have a close escort version for just fighting Centurions, an ADA unit for skeet, a Praetorian hunter, and 3 different counter Clan load outs. These are to be labeled A to F.

Type/Model: Fjellhas base

Tech: Clan / 3050

Config: Biped BattleMech

Rules: Level 3, Standard design

Mass: 75 tons

Chassis: Endo Steel

Power Plant: 300 XL Fusion

Walking Speed: 43.2 km/h

Maximum Speed: 64.8 km/h

Jump Jets: None

Jump Capacity: 0 meters

Armor Type: Ferro-Fibrous

Armament: None

Manufacturer: (New Circe Military Industries)

Location: (New Circe)

Communications System: (NCMI Nokia CRN 131)

Targeting & Tracking System: (Omni Sure Track and Shoot 4)

Type/Model: Fjellhas base

Mass: 75 tons

Equipment: Crits Mass

Int. Struct.: 114 pts Endo Steel 7 4.00

(Endo Steel Loc: 3 LA, 1 LT, 1 RT, 1 LL, 1 RL)

Engine: 300 XL Fusion 10 9.50

Walking MP: 4

Running MP: 6

Jumping MP: 0

Heat Sinks: 10 Double [20] 0 .00

Gyro: 4 3.00

Cockpit, Life Supt., Sensors: 5 3.00

Actuators: L: Sh+UA+LA+H R: Sh+UA+LA+H 16 .00

Armor Factor: 231 pts Ferro-Fibrous 7 12.50

(Armor Crit Loc: 3 RA, 1 LT, 1 RT, 1 LL, 1 RL)

Internal Armor

Structure Value

Head: 3 9

Center Torso: 23 34

Center Torso (Rear): 12

L/R Side Torso: 16 24/24

L/R Side Torso (Rear): 8/8

L/R Arm: 12 24/24

L/R Leg: 16 32/32

Weapons and Equipment Loc Heat Ammo Crits Mass

TOTALS: 0 49 32.00

Crits & Tons Left: 29 43.00

Calculated Factors:

Total Cost: 13,942,250 C-Bills

Type/Model: Fjellhas base Prime

Tech: Clan / 3050

Config: Biped BattleMech

Rules: Level 3, Standard design

Mass: 75 tons

Chassis: Endo Steel

Power Plant: 300 XL Fusion

Walking Speed: 43.2 km/h

Maximum Speed: 64.8 km/h

Jump Jets: None

Jump Capacity: 0 meters

Armor Type: Ferro-Fibrous

Armament:

1 Medium Pulse Laser

1 LB 5-UAC

2 Adv. Tact. Msl. 12s

2 Laser AMSs*

1 Cylon 30mm KEW

Manufacturer: (New Circe Military Industries)

Location: (New Circe)

Communications System: (NCMI Nokia CRN 131 )

Targeting & Tracking System: (NCMI Omni Sure Track and Shoot 4)

Type/Model: Fjellhas base Prime

Mass: 75 tons

Equipment: Crits Mass

Int. Struct.: 114 pts Endo Steel 7 4.00

(Endo Steel Loc: 1 LA, 2 RA, 1 LT, 1 RT, 1 LL, 1 RL)

Engine: 300 XL Fusion 10 9.50

Walking MP: 4

Running MP: 6

Jumping MP: 0

Heat Sinks: 14 Double [28] 4 4.00

(Heat Sink Loc: 1 RA, 1 LT)

Gyro: 4 3.00

Cockpit, Life Supt., Sensors: 5 3.00

Actuators: L: Sh+UA+LA+H R: Sh+UA+LA+H 16 .00

Armor Factor: 231 pts Ferro-Fibrous 7 12.50

(Armor Crit Loc: 3 RA, 1 LT, 1 RT, 1 LL, 1 RL)

Internal Armor

Structure Value

Head: 3 9

Center Torso: 23 34

Center Torso (Rear): 12

L/R Side Torso: 16 24/24

L/R Side Torso (Rear): 8/8

L/R Arm: 12 24/24

L/R Leg: 16 32/32

Weapons and Equipment Loc Heat Ammo Crits Mass

1 Medium Pulse Laser RA 4 1 2.00

1 LB 5-UAC LA 1 60 7 10.00

(Ammo Locations: 3 LA)

1 Adv. Tact. Msl. 12 RT 8 15 8 10.00

(Ammo Locations: 1 LT, 2 RT)

1 Laser AMS* RT 5 1 1.00

1 Adv. Tact. Msl. 12 LT 8 5 7.00

1 Cylon 30mm KEW CT 0 50 2 1.00

(Ammo Locations: 1 CT)

1 Laser AMS* HD 5 1 1.00

TOTALS: 31 78 68.00

Crits & Tons Left: 0 7.00

Calculated Factors:

Total Cost: 17,344,250 C-Bills


	45. Chapter 45 28 Mar 3049

**Chapter 45**

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

 **28 Mar 3049**

 **Cate's Hold SAS tunnel.**

Joachim Ronneberg was a third-generation hard rock miner. He had done a tour of duty, as required, in the SLDF army. But his one true love had been the tunnels, and he had hated having to spend weeks away from them to do his reserve duty. He had been underground for over a decade, after leaving the SLDF military. And that was why he currently was leading a team with people who had the same skills as the ones he had. Each of his teammates had been pulled off of other jobs back home just for this mission.

They were working on the clearing of the SAS support base tunnels. They had been taking it slowly, as they removed the blocking rockfalls, one rock at a time. They were putting up specially made temporary shoring timbers as they pulled out enough of the blocking rocks. He was in his modified lifting exoskeleton for this mission. It had been made for emergencies, after a major cave in back home in the late 2920s.

They had already cleared and then opened the "ground" bay in this tunnel. This had held a motor pool for the SAS to use while they were living in this section of the tunnel system. It had not been full of ground transports, but it also had not been empty. After they opened the exit door to that vehicle bay? They had been able to empty the bay, after night had fallen over the campsite. In that bay, they had found a matching pair of Nightshades and Rippers VTOLS. This was a nice fit to match a pair of each Beagle and Gabriel hover craft, that looked like they could just be driven out of the bay door after a light dusting off.

What had caused a lot of excitement, were a full lance of Vector VTOL's and a pair of larger Cobra class VTOLs sitting in the center of the bay. Joachim had known about the Cobra's. He had used them a few times in training, back in his army days. He also knew that the Exiles did not have enough of them compared to the need for those large craft. They were so much better than the dozens of Kornovs that had been brought back on the different supply runs.

You could tell were the eight Rotundas had been parked in the underground cavern. They were missing, along with what the logbooks had said were all of the cargo trucks. Getting the newest additions to the SLDF had not been a problem. The crew than had to be able to re-hide the exit blast door, and that had been a good bit harder. The crew also had to work getting them out of the bay, along with all of the on-hand tools and spare parts for who knew what other craft. It was a very large cavern after all. They also had to do the work in such a way, that no one on this planet would find out what this group had been up to. The cargo space on the Cargo King, and trucks in the Lions were now coming in handy.

Now they were making their way to what was called "The Main Bay". No one had any idea on what was in this "Main Bay", if anything. By now, and thanks to information found in the Vehicle Bay. This working team had been briefed. That this SAS unit, must have tried to Escape and Evade, to make it to a larger friendly unit. This had to be sometime after the 31st Royal Mechanized Infantry Division had left the planet. The one big question they hoped to find? It was why, they had not been used in the combat to Liberate Terra.

Joachim had been only keeping his mind half on the job, as his massive metal arms on his exoskeleton pulled another huge rock from near the ceiling of the tunnel. He did a half turn and put the half ton rock bolder on the floor, off to one side of where he was standing. A second person would hit the rock with a mechanical hammer or drill, to make the rock easier to be carried out of the still open smaller hatch. Right now, that second person was not there, and he would have to make the rock the right size to move down the corridor. You could get into the zone of moving and remove a lot of stone, as long as you kept your eyes on the rocks that surrounded you.

While Joachim was still working with that one bolder, one of the escorts went up the small rock wall like she was part mouse. She had noticed that rocks had not refilled the space, and it looked like they might have hit another void. The escort was there to handle any defenses, that the SLDF were known to have built into bases like this. When she couldn't see how deep the void might be? She hit her powerful hand-held flashlight.

When Joachim turned in his exoskeleton to line back up on the rubble wall. He saw the escort get bathed in a beam of bright white light. The escort was not dumb. She dropped out of the line of the opening, that maybe was only two heartbeats later. A blast of ruby light came out of the hole and impacted about twenty feet down the tunnel. No one moved for about half a minute, and after nothing else happened, like more weapons fire or another cave in. The rest of the work team started to react to the hostile weapons fire.

Joachim started to unlatch from his equipment when the escort gingerly made her way towards him. She kept throwing looks back to the open hole in the barrier. As Joachim reached for his side mounted Mauser, he felt that he needed to poke the bear a little. "Hey, Babs. You know that you are supposed to knock before you go into someone's home."

"Oh, Frak You Jo. That was a close one." As she came to the side of the lifting suit, she kept talking. "Looks like we found an active defensive point."

Joachim just smiled, and with a single arm wave two more people join them. The four of them were armed, and they walked up to the hole. They were keeping low or off to one side of the hole, to keep out of the line of sight of the opening. Besides knowing how to work in mines, they also were trained in how to fight within them.

While they were getting in position, a second group of armed personnel was alerted to the events unfolding deeper in the tunnel. They were rushing through the tunnel from the now converted SAS barracks room where they had been sleeping. They were the second work shift and they also were the back up in case of any emergency, like a cave in or finding an active defensive point. The contact team was not to just sit around and wait for back up. They were to find out as much information as they could, while the second team got ready to back them up.

Babs was the point man, and she would lead any recon. She shot Joachim a look, and with a returned nod. He reached into his pocket and activated an infrared glow stick. It was not visible to the naked eye and any sensors that were activated by visible light. Without waiting for any sign of hostile actions. Joachim leaned back and launched the IR strobe stick into and threw the hole, that he had exposed as hard as he could.

Babs pushed off the rocks with her knees and she pulled the weapon sights to her eye, all in one fluid motion of her arms. The flying stick would draw any motion detectors to the IR stick. The strobe was just set to the right frequency, so that her Mauser could "see" it. She only had a narrow field of view, but she could see "something" was moving in the bright IR strobe light. There were some objects that were casting odd shadows in the flashing beams of the stick sliding around. But she could tell that something was still moving around in there.

She dropped back down five seconds after she had risen, to look into the room from the hole. In a very low voice, she passed along what she had "seen". "Okay. It's a big fraking room, and I saw something moving around. I bet it is a Rat. If there is one Rat? "

She was joined in a course of "Then there are more Rats," coming from the other three mouths of this team.

The "Rat" was a 6ton Robot security hover craft, that was both fusion powered and mounted a pair of turret mounted small pulse lasers. This was not the first time one of these people had run across these machines. It was part of basic training and an annual training event for some SLDF units before the Colonials had found them.

Babs pulled out a metal and plastic ball. "Okay. I need everyone's Jonny."

A "Jonny" was a short ranged IFF device, that when activated, it told any SLDF system that they were authorized to be there. They worked, most of the time, but they were very short ranged. That was also why, any group that was exploring a newly found Star League base would wear body armor to go along with the Jonny.

Babs fell back on training, and when she reached back to launch her "Jonny" threw the hole. Three other arms were coming back in a very close mimic of her own actions. The four little balls went in one wave threw the air on different angles, to give the best possible coverage. Babs followed her ball through the hole, even before the other balls had stopped moving on the other side of the barrier. It was all about speed for the next few seconds.

Babs hit the ground hard and rolled behind something. She had no idea what it was, but it was metal, and it was thick. She started scanning the local area threw her scope. Part of her brain noticed that three other bodies had come through the opening in the rockfall. They were not as graceful as her entrance had been, but they had quickly found cover just like she had done. They were looking high and low around them, as they took up covered positions. If there were Rats active? Then there might be other active defenses in this area of the base.

6789708 was about as unhappy as a non-thinking robot could be. It had been activated three days ago, when one of its supporting systems had felt a slight trimmer threw the floor. It had no idea that it was someone clearing a collapsed tunnel. It only knew that it was wrong, and wrong meant that it now had a job to do. That was not what was causing the small hover craft "issues" to be unhappy about. The issues were that it had not been maintained or serviced in a very long time. The small drone knew that this was not the way it was supposed to happen.

It had been barely mobile when it had been activated. The readouts for its lifting fans, said that they were about to totally fail. That was bad, but it went downhill from there. The acoustic system picked up sounds coming from a wall that was not in its mapping program. It had sat there watching the "wall", for two days. That was when the other problems started. The fusion engine was not working at even five percent of its power rating by the second day.

Then when it was "allowed" to use its mounted weapons. One of the two weapons had not fired when activated. It "knew" that the safety interlocks had prevented the weapon from blowing up and taking out the craft with that failure. Still it didn't like, that only one of its weapons had fired. Now it was taking well over specs to recharge the one remaining energy weapon. Before it was fully recharged, one of its lifting fans was showing an overheated drive bearing.

While it had been working on rerouting power to the two primary systems. Four devices had entered into its detection range, and now it was more confused than it had been sense becoming active again. A long unused code was being picked up on the local radio waves. It was not the right code, but it also was not the "wrong" code either. If it had been working closer to being fully operational? It would have shut down and asked for a known friendly biologic to see what was going on. Now, it just wanted to fry whatever was near it, with its only remaining weapon. Now Its motion detector tracked something larger moving through the air. It was tracked, until the motions stopped behind a blocking object. At least this one was in its navigation files.

6789708 followed its programing, and it tried to get a line of sight for its weapons on the hidden trespasser. That was when the overheated bearing on one of its lifting fans came into play. As the Rat made a turn, and it lost lift on that one corner. The 6ton machine dropped that one corner on the hard floor as it was trying to move at 10kph. That was not a good thing, while it had been making a very sharp turn.

Babs heard the sound of metal scraping on the floor off to her left. She turned toward it with her weapon at the ready. Just as she was about to bolt to new cover, her weapon lined up out of instinct on the small hover tank. Without thinking, she pulled the trigger. She was lucky, that they had not been allowed to load explosive grenades into their weapons after they entered the tunnels. It was a well-known fact that grenades and confined spaces were not a fun combination, but that didn't mean that they were not used. It was just that under stress, sometimes you pulled the wrong trigger on your Mauser. This would not make your teammates very happy with the shooter of those little balls of explosive fun.

She hit her target with a full blast of pulse energy from her Mauser. She didn't see the other three sets of laser energy, that came from areas around the recently opened hole in the blocked tunnel. Those three blasts of light had hit on the same side of the tank that Babs had targeted. The RAT might mass 6 tons, but that did not leave a lot of extra mass for armor to cover the hull. The first three hits reduced the light armor shell on that side of the craft, and the fourth laser pulse had made it into the main hull of the little half floating tank. The damage was enough for the safety gear near the engine, to decide it was a good time to shut down.

Babs felt her heart rate start to slow down, as she realized what had happened. She had seen the smoke come out of a few vents, threw her scope. She also thought that she might have seen a few licks of flames somewhere inside that metal box. Seeing the flames in her scope made her realize something about her target. That there was a smell of burnt wires and other things, that were known to smell odd when they got too hot. Now that she was thinking about it with the light coming in threw the hole. It seemed like there was a thick layer of smoke near the floor of the room. It was a lot more, than should have come from just one RAT.

Now that the main threat was over. Babs started to pan her weapon's built in light around the room. About all she could tell, was that it was a larger room, and there did not seem to be any more RATs moving around. She pulled the weapon off of her shoulder and flipped a switch to change from IR light to a more powerful white beam. She was just starting to play the broad white beam around the room. That was when other bright beams of light started to come out of the hole that she had jumped through, what seemed like hours ago. With more light now playing across the room from 8 different points. Her jaw hit the floor and her body almost joined her jaw on the fluid stained floor. She could not help but speak out loud. "Jess's toybox, indeed."

 **1 April 3049**

 **Return to Cate's hold by Zephyr**

The great jumpship popped back into space, very close to where she had been not too long ago. Felix walked around the command center of his ship. After making sure that everything was safe, and there were not any threats within ten thousand kilometers of his ship. He looked over to the communications station after checking all of the threat scopes one last time.

"Send a message to Colonel Mann and let her know we are back, and we are ready to receive any needed reports." Felix had to fight to keep his voice level, and to keep his internal issues with this mission from coloring his voice and actions. _"Frak, this is a dull run."_

They had to emergency leave this jump point over a week ago. It had been when their systems had detected that someone was coming to this jump point. They were just thankful that the Inner Sphere jump drives gave so much warning of a new arrival. They had been able to jump out into very deep space, and they had waited for the unknown jump ship to arrive. They had watched and waited for the 150,000-ton Invader class ship to recharge its drive and then leave. When the ship had left again, and it had not launched any of the three dropship she had been carrying? The Zephyr returned to this part of space and waited some more.

While the radio message was moving toward the planet at the speed of light. A meeting was being held at the ground camp. Colonel Mann looked around the meeting. Unlike the ships that were used by Copeland. Only the K-1 that Admiral Xi had taken with her had dedicated briefing rooms. This briefing room was a prefab building, which had been packed down just for the use as a briefing and management area for this ground mission. It was a nice, well lighted, comfortable, and it came with over 2,000 feet of office and living space.

Mann looked around the room. The first person she let her eyes stay on, was the commander of the SAS based operations. "Bob, you look tired. Was the lack of sleep worth it?"

Bob Rake gave a snort, that sounded tired even to his own ears. "You can say that. With the ground units recovered, along with the suits from the last visit. That alone would have been enough to keep the bean counters back home off our asses. Now that we found this Main Bay. Now, that is just cake with the coffee we had earlier."

Mann smiled and did a little wave with her hand to get more information. "Okay, give it to me. I do not like pulling teeth.

She had almost closed that statement with Query Affirmative, but she stopped herself at the last second. They might be in a SLiE base, but they still had to adhere to the set protocols for any mission to the Inner Sphere. She was thinking that the pain shooting threw her tongue should be enough of a reminder for the rest of this meeting.

Now Bob had a sad eyed look on his face. He had not realized that he was this tired, until he had heard his own voice. "Oh, sorry. We now know that this bay is the end of this base. We thought that there would be two to four more tunnels from this main bay, but they have not found any. We are still stripping out these last areas of anything useful. As far as we know, this last bay was the main firepower of the base. We do know that this base was one of the outside defensive weapons emplacements. Now that we know the layout of this part of the base. If anymore are out there, we will find them. Now besides the tanks and VTOLs you know about. The Main bay had four SPR-4F Specters and four EXT-4C Exterminators."

Bob had to stop talking, as the last mech name fell from his dry lips into the room full of open mouths. Everyone who had been chosen for this mission, knew what the most sought-after equipment would be for the SLiE. Finding two lances of the most advanced scout mechs ever made by the hand of man? Now that was at the top of the list of diamonds to be found, and they had come out of the mine that had given them Nighthawk suits already.

Bob now had a huge smile on his face, that he could not stop from forming. "Yes!" He did a fist pump into the air before he started talking again. "We also found some other machines, that the army would give their first born to have just one of."

The grin that Bob had on his face made it seem like he only had a chin, ears, and hair for a face. "We also found eight PHX-HK2 Phoenix Hawk LAMs and four STG-A5 Stinger LAMs. They were in the same bay as those other scout mechs. I know that this sounds like a lot of mechs, but just like in the tank bay we already emptied. This number is short from what the logbooks say. We think that it is short 8 mechs, at least according to the maintenance log PADDS. The bay held thirty mech storage, support, and repair cubicles that we are still pulling out. What I think is a major keystone, is that we found two Wayland Mobile Bases at the back of the Main bay. They were under some thick camouflage tarps, and we did not find them at first. I think that by sundown or midnight at the latest? We will have all of the spare parts and the Mech support cradles pulled out of the base. After that? We will need a few days to sanitize the area around this Mini-Castle Brian. Oh, and we have found the hulks for over a dozen RATs, but only the one you know about was operational."

Bob stopped talking and looked over to the leader of the second team. He had to play nice, because after this mini castle was sanitized. His team would be folded under her command. He might have five people working on scouting the area for any more surprises, but the rest of his team would fall under the other larger team as they worked in the larger tunnel.

Nat nodded, Bob and she had her own news to pass along. Now that Bob was done, she took over the meeting. "My team has been cleaning and clearing out the first and largest Tunnel of Jess's Toy Box. We have found and cleared over two dozen rooms, so far. We had a good idea of what unit was here, before we landed. But now we know that the last unit assigned to this Castle, was the 31st Royal Mechanized Infantry Division of the 7th SLDF Army. Now we know what they were assigned here to do, and maybe why the SAS unit was not used in the war. It also explains why this place is not laid out like a normal Castle Brian, like we have seen before on other planets. Near as we can tell, this layout is a modified Port Castle format. What we did not know about this planet, and why they were here for so long? It is that this used to be a major supply and repair depot for the Magistracy Navy, back before it fell under Star League control." That was it. The shot across the bow had been given, or the bomb had been dropped on the staff. It was now time to watch and see what the fireworks would bring to the people in this room.

Nat put down her noteputor. She had to wait for half a minute as everyone started talking at once. "What do we know, or maybe I should say. What do we think that we know? We know this Castle held two Mechanized Infantry Brigades and one Battlemech Brigade for decades. That is normal for a Castle, but this one has an odd layout. The closest design that we can find to fit the layout, is a Port Castle. We also know that there is a space depot out there somewhere. What kind of support depot were they protecting? I have no idea. It could be a dropship or maybe a warship support base. We are in the wrong place, if it was a jumpship support base. That would be on a moon, asteroid, or a larger space station closer to the jump points."

Nat "only" had to spend the next ten minutes explaining that this was a fact of life, and not her making it the Frak up for some off the wall reason. "Now if we can get back on track. We have been stripping all of the rooms, as they are declared safe. We think that when the 31st Division pulled out of the base. It was to support General Kerensky all the way to the Exodus from the Inner Sphere, but they never made it back here. My teams think that they must have been short lift capability. It might have been, that they were short dropships, or they might have been short interstellar ships, at this point we just do not know. Maybe when we get back, a records check can be made on a library core to see if there are any reports from this unit."

The whole room was now quiet, and she kept talking. "We have been finding a lot of left behind supplies and the odd combat vehicle in each of the lance and company areas of the Castle. The three battalion support areas, which we have found so far. All had items that you would expect to be left behind, if you were running tight on storage space or lift capacity. We have found old and now useless missiles and autocannon rounds for mechs and tanks all over the place. We have also found the equipment that looked to have been undergoing detailed maintenance when they started to be pulled out. That has been were we have found them and other bulk spare parts. That might have been why the SAS unit had been left behind, in the first place. They were guarding everything that was left behind by the larger unit, and that might mean a lot of items are still left to be fount."

Nat had to defend her statement until Colonel Mann stepped in and gets the meeting back on track. "I am just glad that we found that hidden Sally port near the Cargo King. That has made getting everything loaded a lot easier, than having to pull it down the smaller tunnels and then loading it into trucks out in the open. I think we should have brought another cargo ship." If it came down to it, they could launch a dropship to the Zephyr and use her cargo bays. That would cause a slight risk to the cover story of her just being a "normal" jumpship, but it was something that had been preapproved by higher command.

Colonel Mann had to smile at everything she was being told today. She knew that in one of the plans, they were going to bring both the found Cargo King and one of the Cargo Masters that the SLDF Navy had been able to build. The Cargo Master had been pulled at almost the last minute. Someone in higher command had thought that filling two good sized cargo ships and the Tug was being overly optimistic on the planner's part.

Mann looked over to the young Captain Fallstaff. He was responsible for the ground defense situation while she was on the ground. "Captain. How are our ground defenses looking? Are there any threats, close to us?"

The Captain almost looked bored. He had been hoping for more action when he had been ordered on this mission. So far, the only "good" thing had been to find out that the "New" light Colonel was not a micromanager. One part of his brain knew that the longer they stayed here, the more items that they could recover for his people to use. It also meant that his unit could eat as many steaks and ribs as they wanted, without breaking the trooper's bank. That didn't mean that he, and the others, were not going a little stir-crazy as they waited. He pulled out his own notes after being asked a pointed question by the mission commander.

"We are up to eighteen events, where we picked up someone or someone's trying to get a closer look at us. So far, they have left after we made contact with them. Most are handled by our infantry QRF, and they were daytime events. The ones at night have run away as soon as they picked up one of the on duty mechs running toward them. So far, we have not had to exchange weapons fire with anyone getting close to our camp. I think picking up over 60tons heading your way at high speed has them cowed. We were fined 250 C-Bills for not letting the local potentate know that we had a "mech practice range set up". Still we were not asked to pay for any repairs that might have needed to be done to that one Boomerang, that was using that big ridge line to sneak a peek."

Fallstaff was grinning like the Cheshire cat. He had been at the controls of the Wolverine IIC at the time of that event. The small 5ton spotter plane had only been "grazed" by his energy weapon. It had been set to "training mode", but it had enough energy to blister paint at the range he had used it. He could still hear the pilot squeaking and being very upset at whoever had just shot at her. He was betting that the pilot had to use a spatula to clean out her flight suit when she got back to a landing field.

Mann made a face. She could tell the Captain was bored, and she also knew that a bored mech commander could cause some issues. It was her job to try to make sure that something like that did not happen. "Keep it up. We will have the Zephyr back soon. Until then, we need to be able to bluff threw most threats. I do not know about any of you, but I do not want to have to live on a dropship while we wait for our ride home to stop by. All because we get attacked, and they get to close."

Lieutenant Colonel Mann was about to say more, when one of her staff members entered the briefing room. The current mission commander was quietly passed a note. She quickly reads it, and then made eye contact with the messenger. "Send all of the relevant and cleared data files on an encrypted channel." She turned and looked over to the captain of the Cargo King. "Is it worth taking a trip to the jump point, and offloading what we have pulled out so far?"

The Captain of that heavily armed cargo ship made a face. He didn't say anything as he did some math in his head. "I know that the Syssiphus is half full of recovered material. If we shift that over to my ship. That will give me two full cargo bays and a good start on a third one. I could see if we have any handy cargos on the other ships at the drop port or in the warehouses we can buy."

The Colonel was thinking hard about her options. She could not draw on the funds that Copeland had set up, but that didn't mean that she didn't have access to some funds. "We have a budget but see what you can find. I will let Mr. Gaeta know. I want you off the ground in 24 hours or less. We will put everything we find in the Syssiphus or in the two Lions, until you get back."

She was hoping that this was going to be worth the risk. But orders were orders, and they had not had anyone stop by. That is besides the local inspector on the first day and the fresh food shipments to the camp. That fell under her orders, so that she could get some of the items off the ground if she felt it was worth clearing the cargo bays on the dropships. Right now, they had some very important items that the SLiE could use.

 **3 April 3049**

 **New Circe.**

Robert was worried. He had been "on leave" after returning from helping pull all of those people off Nike's World. He had been expecting to get the go ahead to start his next run well before now. He had heard, some well-placed rumors. That the next run had been approved of already by the power players of his people. He knew that his ship had come out of a detailed maintenance cycle weeks ago. She was sitting in an orbit near the Station, with only a caretaker crew on board her. He also knew that the dropships he had made runs with before, were also finished with their latest maintenance cycle and they were all sitting at the main space port. What he did not know, was why they were delaying his next run. Something was up, but he had no idea what it might be. Then he had received the message, that the head of the Navy wanted to see him out of the blue. He didn't know if he should be thankful or even more worried. He had settled on worried.

Admiral Whitfield was in the same office, that he had been in the last time Robert had stopped by to answer his official and written orders. The only difference was that this time the gatekeeper was different. The young lieutenant was a female this time, and she didn't seem to be as uptight as the last one had been. Maybe a note had been passed to warn this one about his arrival. Robert had been simply directed to a seat in his outer office, while she worked on something that only she could see. It was out of the blue, when she talked to him again.

"Commodore Copeland. The Admiral will see you now." The young officer didn't raise her voice and her tone was professional, if a little bored sounding.

Robert looked up from his new Colonial made electronic book reader. He had been on the same page for the last fifteen minutes. He just could not get his mind to focus on the news reports that he had been interested in, when he had pulled the reports from the global information network this morning. He had thought that maybe, one of them might give him hints on what might be about to affect him.

Robert gave the door a hard knock and then entered, after hearing a command come through the maybe wooden door. He took six steps into the room and then threw a parade ground quality salute to his friend. "Commodore Robert Copeland! Reporting as ordered!"

Admiral Whitfield smiled and then rose from his chair. He returned the salute and then he held out his hand to his long-time friend. Robert dropped his salute and reached for the offered hand and greeted his long-time friend in return. It had been some time since they had been able to "be friends" since he had been recalled back into service.

"Good to see you Robert. Just grab a seat." David had to smile at the way his friend was handling himself. It was almost like he was expecting to be taken to the Headman any second for some unknown crime.

Robert smiled and then took a seat, but he could feel an itch in the center of his shoulder blades. He watched as his friend went to pour a few drinks from a long shelf fixed to a wall. This time Robert was fully willing to have a drink. It was well past time for the noon day meal, and the sun had almost sat on the horizon visible out the windows.

 _"_ _Maybe this is not going to be a bad meeting, after all,_ " thought Robert as he took a sip of the amber drink.

Robert felt that it was time to find out why he had been called in to see the head of the Navy. After he had the first sip of his drink, and he could feel his nerves starting to settle. "So, David. Is this my last meal?" Robert had timed this comment, just as his friend seemed to almost be done taking a sip of his imported whiskey.

Admiral Whitfield did a snort, and some of the expensive liquor went up his nose. "Damn it, Robert! You made me waste it! You know how expensive this stuff is. Query Affirmative."

"Oh, quit squawking. Why did you want to see me? As far as I know? I am still on the beach. Query Affirmative." Robert was not going to give any hints, about what he had been up to while he had been on the beach. What he had been doing was not illegal, but it was not something that an active duty officer should be caught doing.

David took a second sip of the amber colored liquid, to buy some time for his nose to stop burning like it was full of flame jell. He was still not ready to drop the big bomb, yet. "Have you been taking drama lessens…. on your vacation? Query Affirmative."

Robert didn't say anything at what he knew was a delaying tactic. He just gave his boss a look and waited to find out why he was here and being given free drinks.

David gave up playing games with Robert. This was not his last meeting today, before he could go home to his wife and grandkids. "Robert, you are not going on another supply run just yet."

Robert hides a smile behind his glass for a few seconds, before dropping the glass again. "Does this have something to do with Xi's little vacation to a certain planet a long way from here?"

David felt his eyes get larger. It was not a secret that Rear Admiral Xi had taken a vacation. Then again, it was not public information when officers took scheduled time off. It also was classified what and were Xi had been. "I am not supposed to talk about this, but somehow I think you know what she has been doing. We are currently making a run to Cate's Hold. While they are there? Xi is using information that you provided, to talk with MMM. Higher Command and the Lord Protector want to see if we can work a little closer together with them. They are working on some ideas, that you put together on your last run. But that is not the main reason for your delay on making the next supply run to the Inner Sphere."

Robert put his drink down on a side table and looked at his navy's most senior officer. "Okay then, what is my mission. You would not have called me here, to tell me that I am still on the beach. Query Affirmative."

David let an evil grin come to his face, it was time to drop his bombshell. He just happened to know that this was information that Robert would not have access to. The final decision to use him had only been decided at a meeting late last night. "It is time for The Pilgrimage. It is going to be a smaller, but faster mission this time around. We were not planning on going, due to the war. The backup plan was to use one of the capital ships, if we needed to make the run or if we just needed to make contact with our "other friends". Your Styx has worked out so well on the other missions, that this plan has changed. You will be the mission commander for The Pilgrimage, and Jules will be the transport commander."

Robert was in shock. He felt that someone had both hit him in the head and in the genitals, at the same time…. Hard. The Pilgrimage was a major event for the whole star system. It was almost a religious event for Clan Wolverine. The Pilgrimage was a 3-part mission. One was to pay respects to the members of Clan Wolverine who had died, and not just the ones that had died in the Gamma 1551 AW system. It was something that was done to reinforce that the Wolverines were not dead, and that they did not forget what had happened to them in the past. It was also to show that they had not forgotten about the betrayal they had been subject to. Every other Pilgrimage had brought between a few thousand and ten thousand members of the SLiE out to that location, so far from home and so much closer to clan space.

It was also to meet with any of the Dark Caste that might be in the area and were friendly to the reflagged SLiE. The bandits didn't know who they were meeting with, only that at certain times. A group would show up in this area of space, that were not gunning for them like the rest of the clans were known to do. The Wolverines would trade Inner Sphere tech and some other items, that they had figured out the other groups wanted. Most of the time it was a list of things that had been worked out after trial and error over a hundred years.

Some of the groups of the Dark Caste would trade information about what was going on with the rest of the clans, and they would also trade plans for newer weapons systems. They also knew that the location was purged from all Clan navigational databases. That was how the SLiE got the Avar and plans to make other combat units that the Clan had been making. The payment for the plans to make the Avars and 2 examples had been steep. It had been ten fighters that were a mix of Ahab and Hammerhead airframes, ten clan weapons technology upgraded Golden age Mechs, and two hundred tons of spare parts for other heavy weapons. It had been hoped and it had been hinted on the last mission.

That on this trip, they were going to have two different classes of Omni fighters and a new dropship design that their most steady contact wanted to trade to them. With this war raging and the information that was brought by the Coast Guard ship lost in time. It was decided that this mission must be launched. It was only a question of who would go, and how many ships would be undertaking this mission.

The last part of the mission was to recover some of the debris left over from that war. When the forces, led by IlKhan Nicholas Kerensky, had left the system? After they had defeated the Wolverine forces that had been caught there. The other clans had left very quickly, and they had not even bothered to clean up the many different battlefields. If a warship or transport could not jump out of this system? It was left behind to be forgotten about. After the "war" damaged and wrecked dropships, fighters, and mechs were spread out from both jump points going all the way to the planet surface. Most of the leftovers, but not all, of what had been left behind had been Wolverine crewed and controlled equipment.

According to later information, that the SLiE had been able to trade for to the Bandit Caste. Anything that was connected to them, was considered tainted and it had no place being used by the rest of the clans. Any mech, tank, fighter, dropship or warship that had fallen to Clan Wolverine fire also had the same taint. That had been okay for the returning Wolverines. They had cleaned the battlefield on repeated visits to this star system. It had been a major source of supplies for both the SLiE military and its government. They had started on the planet's surface and it had been used for trading to both the Bandit Caste and the Inner Sphere on supply runs. Most of the time a recovered unit would serve the SLiE and then be used in a supply run later.

They also had been working on trying to repair the old Widowmaker warship Egg Sac, and the other warships left in this system. It was not in their original mission orders to recover it on this run. It was estimated that it was going to take many more visits, before it was ready to leave under its own power. By now all of the planet's surface had been "cleaned" except for some key places. Everything else above the planet had been hidden from any bandit or clan visitor that might stop by.

By now the system was visited by many smaller groups, to remember the people who had stood up to the whole clan for what was right. The area around the last stand had been turned into a sort of shrine, one that saw a Pilgrimage from many other splinter groups from the Clans. Clan Wolverine was only the largest and most well-organized of those groups.

Robert came back to the real world, and he was still having a hard time breathing. He reached over and finished off his drink in one long pull. The now emptied glass missed the table and fell to the floor with a clatter, but it didn't break. He could see his friend watching him very closely. Robert knew that he had fallen into a well laid ambush, and he did not feel bad about it. To be picked to be in a leadership position on a Pilgrimage, was a high honor. To be picked as a commander of any ship on the Pilgrimage was a sign of great trust. To be The Pilgrimage mission commander was the highlight of a person's career. It was normally only given to someone who had earned a line in the Remembrance or was expected to have a line added before they died.

"David, that is not a nice joke to play on someone my age." Robert was only kind of hoping that this was a joke of some kind. Then again, part of his brain was telling him that this was the God's own truth. But if it was the truth? There would be a price to pay, and it could cost him what he loved the most. Was this going to be worth something like that?

The Admiral leaned forward and locked eyes with Robert. All signs of friendship evaporated like a snowball under a blowtorch. "This is not a joke. We have learned a lot about mixing Colonial and our jump drives over the last few years. The Styx had her old jump drive completely removed, and it is being ground up to be recast. She still has her Colonial made one, that I know you have come to love so much. We know that you can mix a Star League age HPG pulse, to mask the colonial drive jump signature. With the old core gone, it will give you back most of your internal cargo space. You will have an escort of a Titan and an Olympus class vessel. The Styx will be their mothership, but they will have their own jump drives. The Styx will carry one tug, and two modified Princess class liners. All of the ships have been upgraded with Colonial made artificial gravity plating."

Robert felt punch drunk at all of the information being given to him all at once. "Okay, I can see that those liners are larger than the other liner I have worked with before. And a lot of the extra crap has been removed already, so they pack about 600 or 650 people in each of them. Query Affirmative. That is still going to make it a small pilgrimage. Still, there are dozens of senior officers that could lead this one. Even, if it is so much smaller than in the past Pilgrimages."

David still had a smile on his face. "Yes, there are. Then again, we have a war going on. Some of the others will be on this trip, but they are passengers on what will most likely be their last chance to take The Pilgrimage. They understand that they are "off duty" until you get them back home. I have a full briefing packet for you."

The Admiral passes over a noteputor to Robert. It was not a very detailed brief, and it only took Robert a few minutes to look over the whole briefing on the digital device. When he was done, he looked over to the Admiral. "Okay, so why the song and dance? Query Affirmative."

Now David looked a little uncomfortable. "I cannot order you to take this mission, Robert. I was pointedly told this by my boss last night. She said, that if you did not want this mission you could back out. She wants you to volunteer for this. Chiefly that is because of all the brass, that you will have to deal with on a very long mission. Not to mention that you will not have the firepower, that we normally send this close to our connection to Clan Space."

Robert had a small smile on his face. He was a military man, and in the deepest part of his mind. He had just been given an order. "When do I leave? Query Affirmative."

Admiral Whitfield gave a huge smile. He didn't say anything for a little while. He used that time to refill both drink glasses. They would spend the next hour working on that refill and talking about the mission and requirements. By the time the meeting was over. The PADD had doubled the amount of information about this mission.

 **1 May 3049**

 **New Circe high orbit.**

On the first of May, the small fleet left New Circe on the long run to the other side of human known space. They were starting The Pilgrimage to an uninhabited almost unnamed world only 25 normal jumps core ward from clan claimed space. The passengers on these ships were a mix of the very old, young, and the ones who had seen the elephant a few to many times.

Each of the three objects were traveling together, at least at the start of the mission they were on. They would stay close together for the first few days of long jumps that the mission required. They were jumping 30 light years every four hours. They were traveling faster and further than any Colonial ship had done before the Cylon war. The base course that they were to take was planned out way above Commodore Copeland's paygrade. The three independent interstellar capable ships would stay close for the first four days or until the Mission Commander changed those orders.

On the start of the fourth day of traveling, the pattern was changed. This was when Commodore Copeland would get his first little bit of freedom. This was the first day that the ships under his command would be traveling in "new space". This was the area of space that had only been scouted maybe once in the last few decades. Most likely the last time that they had been scouted was on the last Pilgrimage. This still was not safe space for anyone to be traveling in, and the convoy's alert fighters were ready, and weapons turrets manned.

Now each jump would put the Styx and one escort carrier in the same star system on the set route. The second carrier would be in a different system scouting the local area. Command was not wanting to waste the effort and opportunity to do some scouting along this long-ranged mission. And on Robert's orders three other systems would have a pair of jump fighters appear in them, along a detailed pre-planned route. They were mounting the best scouting systems that the SLiE could make. Each route had been given to him as a possible route, for the mission to take if they ran into any issues. He did make sure that this idea was approved by Admiral Franks, but it was very close hold. After all it was going to have an impact on the amount of fuel that was going to be needed. It also was going to put a lot more strain on other key parts of the ships on this mission.

These were scouting missions, and no one would know that those ships were spying on them. All entry points were not to be in the normal jump points of those systems. They were close, but they were far enough away that they should go unnoticed. Each of the systems would have these visitors for only four to six hours. When those four to six hours were over? The SLiE units would go into a new system where they would start to scout that system. There also was a rotational mission, that the two carriers would trade off after each day to keep the Styx covered.

This was going to use a lot of the Colonials supplied fuel, but with the old-style jump core being removed from the old Tramp Class ship. She had room. The Styx had been able to have a massive temporary fuel tank installed in that opened area. She would be the tanker for all of the vessels on this mission. She was carrying more fuel than what Colonial One was rated to carry when she left Caprica before the Cylon surprise attack.

If they needed to? The plan was to cut back on those scouting missions, when that fuel supply dropped to 60 percent. This was a lesson that had been learned by Copeland's missions and some of the long-ranged raids that the SLiE had run against the Cylons. If this number was reached while on the return leg? Then Commodore Copeland could use his own discretion, on how long to run those extra scouting missions. They always could strap one of the carriers to the hull of the ship, like they had done with one of the older style of jumpships to save fuel for the overall mission.

 **Ragnar**

In the dark of deep space, a burst of energy and a blur of movement were all that announced that two ships had arrived into this local area. The pair of ships had been here before. One a lot sooner than the second. That second ship was aesthetically not pleasing to the eye, and it didn't matter if they were human or Cylon eyes. The second ship was just plain ugly. It was designed for one job and it did that one job very well, and her looks were not in that job description. The other ship was made of clean lines, and it looked sexy to the human eye.

Captain Phipps looked over to a side screen, and he could not help but frown at what he saw. The Colonial Mover was there, but it was such an ugly ship. He knew under some of those covering shipping containers, were filled with some surprises. Not only was that ship carrying cargo, she was the escort for his pretty lady. The Colonial Navy was limited in what it could do to make real warships. On this mission, they had taken a page out of both Starbucks book and the Star League Navy idea of a Q ship. And they had come up with this idea.

Phipps was brought back to his job when a powerful lightning bolt flashed on the planet below them out of the corner of his eye. "Contact the Mover and have her stick close to us, but not to close. If they scratch my paint, I will have their Fraking ass. Nav, plot a course to the Tunnel."

The old Rising Star class liner led the way to and threw the "Tunnel" that led threw the upper reaches of the gas giant. The old Colonial Mover's last navigator had not kept the old navigation data from its last visit here. As soon as The Boreas entered the tunnel. She sent a transmission down the tunnel, to the hidden Raptor. The trip down the tunnel and docking with the hidden station and anchorage went without issue.

Charles Bellamy was both happy and sad to see his boss and the cargo ships as they approached the Anchorage. That there were two ships was a surprise, but he could see why, and he was grateful to see it. He found out that he had liked having an independent command. As soon as the modified star liner had entered the pocket that held the station. He had sent a copy of all of his mission reports to the mission flagship. He had only received a message saying that the reports were received, and then the hard work had begone.

Out from under two of the containers on the Colonial Mover came a squadron of Vipers and Visigoths. They came flying out of the old ship to take up patrolling routes. The old space liner attached itself to the North Pole, and a flood of people and supplies started to come over to the station. It would take two days before everything calmed down enough, so that the two officers could have a face to face meeting. That meeting would be held on the old star liner. It just had a lot better facilities for something like this. Ragnar anchorage was still very much on the spartan side.

Peter looked up as Charles was first announced by a crewmember, and then the other officer walked into his office. "First off. Charles you have done a Fraking good job. The Vipers and other craft will be using the launch and servicing bay you have finished. I can tell you the pilots of those craft will thank you every day they have to go out on patrol. The small airlock that was cut into the Mover was not fun for them to have to use. I'm also surprised about this warship, that is still around fighting Cylons. You did very well in getting them on board to support our mission. That last data dump is going to have the Admiral fraking foaming at the mouth."

Peter could see that Charles was not going to interrupt his commander. "We had to change the plans after what happened at Troy. I will be staying hear with the Boreas acting as a housing unit. The Colonial mover will be making runs between here and New Circe. They will be taking back anyone that wants to leave, bring in supplies, and take back any information we can find to keep the Admiral and the President in the loop about what is happening out here. I will have to leave periodically, so you will be in command of Ragnar Station. I still will be in overall command of the mission."

Charles didn't know it, but he sat straighter in the chair to sit a little taller with his back ramrod straight. The mission commander saw the move and he kept on talking, like he didn't notice anything. "One of the missions, that I will be leaving on is dropping off a scout team on Canceron. That unit commander has been going over every word about that planet that you have been able to get. I would have liked to wait for this Captain Hewitt to show back up, but that option was not in the original plan. The Mover will act as my escort when I drop off the recon team. After my return from that mission? My ship will be attached to the docking port that is being modified near the new engineering command center. Your office, as the Station Commander, will be were ever you feel fits best for you and your mission."

Peter let a full smile come to his face. "Now that all of the official stuff is done. How are things going?

 **Helios Delta**

 **Canceron**

High above the planet that was once known as the largest democracy in the Colonies. Peter "Moa" Phipps could feel the sweat running down his spine in cold rivers. They had needed 10 days to get ready for this mission. Most of that time had been used for the more refined planning of this part of the operation. Then they had waited two more days as two Raptors made a closer scouting mission of the targeted planet. They only had one area to look at on the whole planet, but it was an important part for the start of this extended mission. As soon as they had completed their report, the mission had been launched.

Peter looked around his bridge one more time. "Okay, launch the cargo shuttle and her escorts. When they clear the bays. Let's drop down and be careful. We don't want to frak this up, or the Old Man will have our Fraking hides mounted on his office door.

On the outside of the fat arrow shaped hull, two Raptors and a medium cargo shuttle left the two vent like small craft bays on the top of the ship. Almost the second those three small craft had cleared the nose of the converted star liner. She started to drop closer to the mostly water covered planet below them. Above the liner an ugly ship vented two full squadrons of fighters into the space around the two Colonial crewed vessels. They were not there to pick a fight with the Cylons, and it was hoped that they would not be needed. The crews of both ships really wanted to leave this planet without the Cylons knowing that they had even been there.

The Boreas lowered herself on artificial gravity, so that her hull would not heat up. That would have been bad for the cargo strapped to her underside. She didn't have a cargo door big enough for what she was carrying. So, it had been "Attached" and sealed in a space safe cargo container normally used by the Colonial Movers. When the ship's hull was only a few meters above the water, and the cargo container was mostly in the water. It split open and a submarine "fell" until it was riding high in the water. As soon as the old Neptune was released, the passenger liner shot back up into space. The two spaceships only stuck around long enough, to make sure the submarine was still functional after it had hit the water. Peter was happy that all was reported as well, and they were ready to start the scouting and support mission on this planet.

 **Notes** :

 **RAT**. I found them in a battletech book when I first wrote this a few years ago. They are a 6ton almost AI hover craft with twin small pulse lasers.

 **Old jumpdrives.** The SLiE would not waste the hard to find materials in an old jump drive. Besides, they would need them to make or test the next generation of jump drives. The old adage of waste not want not.

 **Canceron**. Capital City Hades, other large city Prommos and Mangala. Main attractions are Rudy Range and Kor Yaz Glacier. It took at least 3 large Nuclear warheads in the Cylons surprise attack. It had a huge population and a lot of poor.

 **HH's mission orders**. 1) Protect his ship. 2) Protect the Ragnar Anchorage from being found out. 3) Scout all remaining human groups and collect any information they might have. 4) Evaluate the viability of any human group, and let any survivors know about human form Cylons. 5) Do what can be done to improve those human's situation, but not violate 1 and 2. 6) Scout for any Cylon activity. 7) Kill any Cylon but do not violate 1, 2, and 5.

 **The Story.** When I started writing this, I only wanted to cover Robert and his actions in the IS to support his people. After working with Hotpoint and reading a lot of comments, it has grown from its original path. I hope you all like the additions.


End file.
